Bitcoin Obituaries: 477 Deaths and Counting

Bitcoin has been declared dead 477 times by media outlets and experts. It keeps coming back. Every single time.

The website 99bitcoins.com has been tracking every time a notable publication or figure declared Bitcoin dead. As of 2025, the count stands at 477 obituaries. The first was written in 2010 when BTC was worth $0.23. Bitcoin is currently worth over $75,000. That's a 32,608,596% return since its first declared death.

The obituaries follow a pattern so predictable it could be an algorithm. Bitcoin crashes. Media outlets publish articles explaining why this time it really is over. Bitcoin recovers. Nobody retracts their article. Bitcoin hits a new all-time high. The same outlets publish new obituaries at the next crash. Repeat forever.

Some highlights from the death count: Forbes declared Bitcoin dead in 2012 ($12), 2014 ($350), and 2017 ($4,000). Business Insider killed it in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2018. Bloomberg called time of death multiple times before launching a crypto index. The same publications that wrote obituaries now have dedicated crypto sections staffed with full-time reporters.

The obituaries peaked in 2017-2018, with 124 death notices in a single year. The second biggest spike was in 2022 after FTX collapsed. Each time, the narrative was the same: this is different from previous crashes, the technology is fundamentally flawed, the smart money has moved on. Each time, the narrative was wrong.

There is a statistical argument that Bitcoin obituaries are actually bullish signals. Peaks in death declarations correlate strongly with local price bottoms. If you had bought $100 worth of Bitcoin every time a major outlet declared it dead, you would be a millionaire several times over. The media's track record on Bitcoin is not just bad - it is consistently, reliably, exploitably bad.

The 477th obituary was written in August 2025. Bitcoin responded by continuing to exist. The 478th is inevitable. So is the recovery that follows.