One way to test how close we are to mass public adoption is by trying to understand what the general population feel or think about something. There is a saying which to quote badly, goes something like "if something is being widely spoken about, then you are late to the party"
But I guess that also depends on how the conversation is framed.
I hold no bones about the fact that my politics are on the left of the political scale. That is the traditional left, rather than the modern obscured Overton window would have me pegged as a raging anarchist. And as such, finding reliable news sources in the UK that don't spout the disguised racist undertones of the right wing political class, is fairly tricky. Some outlets are fairly good at disguising this content, whereas other 'red-top' papers are overly blatant about it.
At University, I discovered the Guardian newspapers, founded in my home city of Manchester, and ever since it has normally been one of my go-to sources for what's going on in this little island corner of the world. Although my first fall out came when the guardian online dropped their coverage of the greatest sport known - Rugby League. But that transgression aside, I continued reading.
Guardian coverage of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency
As I have been building up my knowledge and involvement in the crypto world, I've been regularly dipping into the guardian and other news outlets, as a way of gauging the public opinion and their attitude to this emerging technology. The main point I have noticed, albeit not in any scientific way, is that generally the tone of the article itself, usually dictates the mood of the comments. And considering the UK press' stance towards cryptocurrency is broadly negative, the majority of comments follow in this vein.
I've matured a bit since I wrote a previous article poking a little fun at Guardian readers comments, so I was wondering if the general guardian readership has matured too. Also, has progress and time softened the editorial views of the Guardian? I decided to jump into the articles with comments and review whether sentiment was leaning more or less positively since I last posted about this.
So time to review the latest crypto article with an open comments section.
In the Observer, dated 25/02/2023::Crypto is intended to be hard to regulate but at least the Treasury wants to have a go
Surprisingly, we've a nice, fairly positive picture of a shiny Bitcoin, with everyone's favourite chart shape in the background. The picture caption is not quite accurate, and is setting up the tone of the article, introducing the key word 'permissionless' which is dotted throughout the article.
: Jon Naughton has begrudgingly been forced to read the open consultation paper on cryptocurrencies put out by the UK treasury. Immediately he goes into attack mode and calls it a plan to govern the clouds and hold back the tides, before attacking the tone of the document as being written by cryptobro's. A little further on he insinuates it was written by crypto companies with vested interests in the outcome.
A bit of waffle here and there about only libertarian nutters and scammers are trading crypto. We then get is view on permissionless and permissioned blockchains. His insightful conclusion? Permissionless blockchains should never be allowed within the financial services sector because they are unregulated and are the only cause of climate change.
Permissioned blockchains, run by those trustworthy folks at banks, should be adopted because they can be controlled by whoever is running the show.
At first I wondered if we are starting to see a softening in the attitude of the Guardian newspapers towards cryptocurrency. But on reflection what is more likely is they are laying the groundwork for their readership into a state of acceptance for CBDCs.
So how did the Guardian readers react to this article? Let's take a look at a brief insight into the minds of the readership
It didn't take long to find the first reference to criminality:
Pablo's nephew would have been very disappointed if his walls were filled with Dogecoin
Classic Ponzi reference
Zero marks for effort on this one.
'The Bitcoin Scam'
A new take that I haven't seen before. That "The Bitcoin Scam" is aimed at separating rich folk from their money in some sort of class warfare tactic.
'Crypto is nearly dead now'
Yeah except it really doesn't.
Calling for the ban hammer
Tell me you don't understand crypto without telling me...
At least this commentator recognises that drug deals, illegal arms traders, criminals, sex slave owners, money launderers and scammers never happened before cryptocurrency
Tulipmania?
I've included a reply to that comment that led me down a particular rabbit hole to understand the Tulipmania reference and it was a very interesting detour, basically explaining the modern understanding of Tulipmania is mostly misconception
Criminal enterprise
And finally we have come back to criminal enterprise.
So here we have it, to summarise the general consensus of the Guardian readership towards the crypto industry is largely negative. The common misconceptions I wrote about previously are still shining through today. It feels like we are still some way away from mass adoption, I was hoping to find just one nugget of positivity in the comments and the best I could find was this:
Still, the slim pickings indicate we have a way to go before we can start winning hearts and minds. I'm still of the opinion that the Guardian and Observer have changed their narrative and I am sure we will see more coming out about CBDCs and the UK treasury foray into DLT.
Let Satoshi bless the amazing community here on Pub0x who have picked up that good fight and are continuing to bring a ray of decentralized sunshine into each others lives. There is some great writing out there on the benefits of DLT and cryptocurrencies of which I intend to build a resource as the time to take control of the narrative is coming.
