Conspiracy Theories Involving Bitcoins

By Rishma Banerjee

The unregulated and speculative nature of the crypto market has convinced some crypto enthusiasts believing in a number of different conspiracy theories regarding Bitcoin and its development.

Some of these conspiracy theories are reportedly backed by substantial evidence. This is not hard to believe given facts like, several manipulations occur regularly in the crypto market and the creator of a Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, continues to remain an anonymous figure to the world.

Some of these conspiracy theories are:

1) This theory revolves around the Bible book Revelations, chapter 13. This Bible verse discusses the end of the world, explaining the “Mark of The Beast.” In the story, all people must have the Mark of the Beast to survive. These marks are necessary to buy food and live in this cashless dystopian society.

Bitcoin does “mark” the shift to a cashless society but it definitely cannot be considered the devil’s pawn. This theory is a classic example of religious fanatics opposing scientific discoveries as has been true since time immemorial.

2) Another theory states that members of the Bilderberg group, the Federal Reserve, and Mastercard conspired to take over the BTC market by using subsidiaries. The Bilderberg group is a private organization that consists of many of the most influential people in the world. It is thought that the Bilderberg group, through its subsidiary, AXA Strategic Ventures, invested $55 million into Blockstream. Blockstream, in turn, is one of the primary funders of the Bitcoin core development team.

This move might prove to be very profitable for the triad in the future if this theory turns out to be true.

3) The NSA Bitcoin conspiracy claims that the National Security Agency invented the SHA-256 algorithm which is the mathematical protocol that BTC’s Proof-of-Work system functions within. This theory surfaced following the 2013 revelations that the NSA might be spying, on all mobile web activity via a built-in backdoor and similar technology might be used for the SHA-256. Although this theory does not hold up because it has been proved time and again that SHA-256 is a secure protocol.

4) Yet another theory states, China is the original developer of the cryptocurrency. This can be backed by the fact that China houses potentially the largest number of BTC miners and also is home to the largest BTC mining rig manufacturer in the world, Bitmain.

Although the Chinese Government had imposed many restrictions on the crypto exchange, it showed increased interest in research of blockchain. This contradiction leads to a doubt about China’s actual motives.

5) The precision of the coding of Bitcoin has lead a group of people to believe that it might be developed by artificial intelligence. To date, no hard evidence has surfaced, and it’s hard to imagine that someone could program an AI so advanced but this will remain a mystery until the inventor comes out of anonymity.

6) BitcoinMarkets recently presented evidence on Reddit which links the infamous Mt. Gox (formerly the largest crypto exchange in the world) collapse to the movements of one trader. It is possible that this single trader was a group of individuals operating from the same BTC address. The data seemed to indicate a concerted effort to tank the market.

7) According to believers of another theory, governments around the world are secretly buying up all of the BTC in the world.

While it may be difficult to prove precisely how much BTC governments own, there has been a considerable rise in crypto confiscations. These confiscations have led to an increase in the funds for countries like USA who has made millions from selling confiscated coins.

As far as Bitcoin is concerned, more such bizarre or partially accurate conspiracy theories may come up in the future and without further consolidated proof it should not be given too much importance.