An article posted in Forbes’ Level-Up encouraged its readers to buy into bitcoin, despite bitcoin’s price currently sitting within range of its all-time high, following gains of several hundreds of percent over the course of the preceding year. The Forbes owned magazine’s article highlights a consistent pattern among mainstream media outlets’ coverage of cryptocurrency, in which cryptocurrency is sidelined and ignored whilst its price is low, before news organizations rally hype for bitcoin investment after meteoric price gains have already been made.Mainstream Media Has a Tendency to Dismiss Bitcoin While Its Price Is Low Before Hyping It After A Boom
Throughout the nascent years of cryptocurrency bitcoin received scant coverage in the press, with the exception of few niche technology publications. For several years bitcoin evaded extensive coverage in the mainstream press, until the darknet hosted anonymous free-market The Silk Road began to garner attention for facilitating the sale of illegal narcotics using bitcoin as its currency. A spattering of news outlets speculated about the potential for bitcoin’s use a vehicle for money laundering, terrorist financing and narcotics sales. Soon after, however, bitcoin stunned the world with meteoric price gains after unusually harsh austerity measures were being forced upon the nation of Cyprus during 2014. A resulting flood of citizens seeking to convert their savings into any store of value that could evade government seizure drove bitcoin prices from $40 USD to $260 USD.
The rest of 2013 saw many obituaries for bitcoin published by mainstream news outlets, before bitcoin again shocked the world be rallying past $1000 USD following a sudden flood of Chinese entrants into the cryptocurrency markets. The subsequent popping of the China bubble saw a slow year-long grind back to sub-$200 USD prices, seeing the majority of mainstream media publications dismiss the bitcoin bubble as a digital contemporary ‘Tulip Mania’ that would never be heard from again.
The tendency for mainstream news outlets to dismiss bitcoin while its price is low before hyping cryptocurrency after it has boomed has become routine since the 2013 China bubble. The article published by Forbes in Level-Up in recent days titled ‘How To Buy Bitcoin, Now That It’s Reached An All-Time High’ echoes this familiar sentiment. The opening paragraph states that “the price for one coin has spiked to about $2,900. If you haven’t already, now is the time to buy in”.
Continue reading
https://news.bitcoin.com/forbes-encourages-readers-to-buy-bitcoin-at-all-time-highs/