Yesterday, Arun Jaitley, the Finance Minister of India simply stated in his address that Bitcoin is not a legal tender and it will go after individuals that use it for illicit activities; however, he encouraged the development of blockchain technologies. The media misinterpreted his statement and now every article talks about how India has killed Bitcoin.
The market collapsed losing $100 billion in value today and every article has blamed India. The problem here is, the media is so illiterate to interpret what was said by Mr. Jaitley. I understand what he was saying as do others. In 2013, America had the same problem cracking down on illicit activities using Bitcoin. Remember Silk Road?
My response to you, the media is, YOU ARE WRONG. India did not kill Bitcoin. Instead, the click-bait media tried to kill Bitcoin and in the process erased $100 billion in value in mere 24 hours based on false reporting.
His statement verbatim was: “In almost no country in the world has [cryptocurrency] been a legal tender or coin and [India] will take all measures to eliminate the use of these crypto assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system”.
Now let’s dissect this properly:
- No country has adopted Bitcoin to replace their Fiat. We need regulations in place to do have digital currency adopted. We as a society are not there yet. Why would anyone hold India or the Finance Minister solely responsible to usher this change without regulatory, and proper accountability due-diligence, as well as a measure to safeguard the average citizen who doesn’t understand even how Fiat is valued?
- Many will recall, India had recently replaced its largest denomination bank notes, a move aimed to curb corruption, obstinate counterfeiters and stop billions of dollars of taxable income that are currently stored in the underground economy. These painful steps of demonization were primarily taken by the government to attack the black market money.
For reference, India is where the bitcoin exchanges have adopted the highest standards of KYC (know your customer) with transactions that are transparent and conducted through bank accounts.
With just the above information, it is mind boggling to read the panic provoking headlines. The trust we had placed in the media has gone sour. We are no longer informed readers. We are misinformed. Sadly Mark Twain knew it best even in his time when he wrote, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”
Here’s a great example of Aaron Sorkin’s writing that I’ve always seen as the downfall of American Media.
“We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn’t belittle it; it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t scare so easy. And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one — America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”
The twisted media’s 24-hour cycle to blame India is just another example of how Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt are the key ingredients used to make money at the expense of naive citizens.
I think we can all agree, no one trusts the Mainstream Media anymore. They misinform to cause fear and panic for desperate clicks to garner revenues from falling ad revenue. Their intent is never to stop, understand, analyze and then inform the readers of unbiased facts.
It is a known fact, media is on a down-hill spiral for revenue. This is why you will noticed 3 autoplay advertising on their story pages, which often is laced with a desperate clickbait headline. Often the story’s content has not been vetted for fact-checking. It is sad that today’s journalism lacks clarity, content and ethics.
Today’s stories have forced the readers to sell their cryptocurrency almost on a panic mode, based on misinterpreted facts. Tomorrow, it may publish a correction or paint a rosy picture merely on the account of another 24 hours news cycle of some another country endorsing cryptocurrency.
We all have had enough of these media discrepancies and misinterpretations. They are destroying billions in value to fuel pennies per click for ad revenue, not to mention crippling the underlying technology for further development. It is now the sad state where the newspaper that is printed is not worth the paper it is printed on.
Today’s headlines are an embarrassment to every media newspaper and the aftermath of the outcome should bring shame to the current state of journalism.
Founder, Gurbaksh Chahal
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