The Bitcoin Delusion: 7 Shocking Reasons Why Humans Worship Digital Numbers While Their Planet Burns

Warning: This article may contain traces of truth. Consume at your own risk!

[Classified Report: Galactic Federation of Intelligent Species - Earth Observation Unit]
[Security Level: Zeta-9, Not for Human Consumption]
[Observation Cycle: 23.7 Earth-years]

Executive Summary for Supreme Commander

After extensive field research on the primitive technological civilization of Earth, we have identified a particularly puzzling behavior that defies rational explanation. A significant portion of humans have devoted enormous resources, computational power, and emotional energy to maintaining a digital accounting system they call “Bitcoin.” This behavioral anomaly presents a fascinating case study in species-wide delusion and warrants continued observation.

Classification Status: Continue monitoring. Intervention not yet necessary but add to potential extinction pathway models.

Section 1: Historical Origins and Foundational Absurdity

Our archaeological data indicates Bitcoin emerged in the Earth year 2008 during a primitive financial crisis, introduced by an entity known as “Satoshi Nakamoto“— possibly a single human, a collective, or as speculated by some humans themselves, a visitor from another star system (they are incorrect; our records show no authorized contact missions during this period).¹ The genesis of this system occurred on January 3, 2009, when the first “block” was “mined” containing an encoded message about human banks requiring “bailouts”.

The foundational text, or what humans call the “white paper,” outlines a system for exchanging digital tokens without centralized authority. What makes this remarkable is not the technology itself—which is rudimentary by galactic standards—but that humans have assigned near-religious significance to what is essentially a distributed ledger system. They did this despite having no predetermined agreement on its value, a phenomenon that would be classified as mass psychosis on at least 17 developed worlds.

Most puzzling is that Bitcoin’s creator disappeared after establishing the system, which in human culture typically indicates a fraudulent scheme. Yet perplexingly, this disappearance increased rather than decreased human trust in the system.² This behavior is so illogical that our behavioral scientists initially classified it as measurement error.

Section 2: The Energy Paradox or “How to Burn a Planet for Imaginary Value”

While humans frequently express concern about their planet’s changing climate, they simultaneously devote enough electricity to power small nations to maintaining the Bitcoin network.³ This is the equivalent of a species noticing their vessel is sinking, then drilling additional holes in the hull to “solve” the problem.

The humans call this process “mining,” though no physical extraction occurs.⁴ Instead, specialized computers compete to solve mathematical puzzles that serve no purpose beyond maintaining network consensus. The reward for this activity is newly created digital tokens (currently 3.125 per “block”).⁵

The computational hardware used has an extremely short lifespan, generating substantial electronic waste—comparable to the entire waste production of the human region known as “Netherlands”. When confronted with this contradiction, Bitcoin defenders typically respond with vague assertions about future technologies or “renewable energy,” a fascinating display of what humans call “cognitive dissonance.”

This would be like our ancestors on Proxima Centauri destroying entire mountain ranges to manufacture specialized calculators whose sole purpose was solving puzzles that produced numbers with no inherent utility—and then declaring these numbers extremely valuable because they required resource destruction to create. Such behavior would have resulted in immediate psychiatric intervention planet-wide.

Section 3: Cultural Rituals and Tribal Behaviors

The human Bitcoin subculture has developed its own language, rituals, and tribal identifiers that would fascinate any xenoanthropologist. Participants communicate using specialized terminology that signals in-group status:

1. “HODL” – A ritualistic command to maintain possession of tokens regardless of market conditions. Originally a typographical error from an intoxicated human in 2013, it evolved into a philosophical stance and battle cry.⁶ Some believers later reinterpreted it as an acronym for “Hold On for Dear Life,” demonstrating humans’ remarkable ability to retroactively create meaning from random events.
2. “Number Go Up” – A primitive incantation reflecting the fundamental belief system: that these tokens will inevitably increase in value simply because they have previously done so.
3. “Bitcoin sign guy” – A tribal hero who performed the ritual act of displaying a “Buy Bitcoin” sign behind a central banking authority figure during a governmental proceeding, receiving 6.3 bitcoins as tribute from the community.⁷

The tribal nature extends to visual symbols and “memes”—evolutionary replicators of cultural information that spread with virus-like efficiency.⁸ Studies indicate that these “memes” correlate with price movements 67% of the time with a 48-72 hour lag, suggesting a remarkable feedback loop between cultural expressions and perceived value.⁹

Most fascinating is how participants simultaneously acknowledge the herd behavior driving Bitcoin’s value while using this acknowledgment to justify continued participation—a self-aware delusion rarely observed outside of human religious contexts.

Section 4: The Scam Paradox

Perhaps most baffling to our research team is how a community so frequently victimized by fraudulent schemes continues to maintain faith in the underlying system. Our historical database documents numerous major incidents:

1. Mt. Gox – A primitive exchange that “lost” 850,000 bitcoins (then worth approximately $450 million) in 2014.¹⁰
2. The Bitcoin Savings and Trust – A transparent “Ponzi scheme” that acquired 700,000 bitcoins by promising 7% weekly returns—a mathematical impossibility that nevertheless attracted substantial human investment from 2011-2012.
3. The MyCoin Pyramid Scheme – A fraud that cost investors approximately $400 million.
4. The AsicBoost Controversy – A technical exploitation that may have generated profits of $100 million annually while undermining the system’s supposed meritocracy.

After each incident, rather than questioning the fundamental premises of their belief system, participants typically strengthen their commitment—a phenomenon human psychologists call the “sunk cost fallacy” but which our xenopsychologists classify as “Reality Rejection Syndrome.”

Section 5: The Value Hallucination

The most profound aspect of Bitcoin is what humans call its “market capitalization”—the multiplication of the current exchange rate by the total number of tokens. At various points, this theoretical value has exceeded $1 trillion, leading one human observer to note this represents “enough money to change the course of the entire human race, for example eliminating all poverty or replacing the entire world’s 800 gigawatts of coal power plants with solar generation”.

Yet this value exists only as a collective agreement. A small group of “whales” (humans controlling large numbers of tokens) effectively cannot convert their holdings to traditional currency without destroying the very value they seek to capture—a limitation they systematically avoid discussing.

What makes this truly remarkable is that humans are aware of this contradiction. Financial commentator Peter Schiff highlighted the absurdity by proposing a thought experiment where all companies liquidate their productive assets and convert to Bitcoin, theoretically making everyone “rich” while producing nothing of actual value.¹¹ The fact that Bitcoin advocates could not recognize this as devastating criticism suggests a form of mass delusion that would merit immediate neurological intervention on any developed world.

Section 6: The Charity Confusion

In an unexpected twist, the Bitcoin community occasionally channels its resources toward charitable causes—though often through mechanisms that simultaneously promote their belief system. Organizations like CoinMENA have launched satirical campaigns highlighting Bitcoin as a solution to inflation and financial struggles.¹² The community donated approximately half a million dollars to a human who simply held a sign promoting Bitcoin on a visual transmission medium.

This behavior parallels what we’ve observed in religious organizations throughout the galaxy: philanthropy primarily as a mechanism for validating and expanding the belief system rather than from genuine altruistic impulses. The most striking example is how humans debate whether organizations like the Wikimedia Foundation should accept cryptocurrency donations, with concerns about environmental impact competing against ideological commitment to the technology.¹³

Section 7: The Future According to Humans

Bitcoin advocates advance several potential futures, all of which reveal profound misunderstandings about economic systems, resource allocation, and human psychology:

1. Bitcoin as “digital gold” – Despite gold’s value deriving from physical properties, cultural history, and practical applications, humans believe a digital token with none of these attributes can serve the same function.
2. Bitcoin as “world currency” – Ignoring that functional currencies require stability, policy mechanisms, and widespread acceptance for everyday transactions.
3. Bitcoin as “freedom technology” – Overlooking that true financial freedom would require a system accessible to all, not primarily those with technical expertise and computational resources.

The most fervent believers, called “maximalists,” envision a future where Bitcoin becomes the foundation of global finance and society. This would be equivalent to an advanced civilization deciding to base its entire economy on solving increasingly difficult palindromic equations—a proposal that would result in immediate removal from the Galactic Council.

Conclusions and Recommendations for Fellow Observers

Bitcoin represents a fascinating case study in how humans can collectively assign value to fundamentally valueless tokens through a combination of technological mysticism, tribal psychology, and financial speculation. While the underlying distributed ledger technology has potential applications, the specific implementation as Bitcoin demonstrates a species still struggling with basic resource allocation problems.

Most concerning from an evolutionary standpoint is the system’s built-in limitation: only 21 million bitcoins will ever exist, with approximately 19 million already in circulation. This artificial scarcity serves no purpose beyond manipulating perceived value—like a species deliberately limiting their water supply during a drought to make existing water “more valuable.”

For any observing species considering first contact: we recommend waiting until humans evolve beyond this primitive tokenized status-seeking behavior. Current estimates suggest this may require between 50-200 additional Earth years, assuming their climate remains habitable.

Should observation become necessary, approach through mediums focusing on technical capabilities rather than speculative value, as the emotional attachment to price appreciation appears to override rational thought in approximately 94.7% of human Bitcoin discussions.

End Report. Transmission complete. May the eternal light of the seven suns guide your path.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin ↩︎
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_bitcoin ↩︎
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_bitcoin ↩︎
4. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/what-is-bitcoin ↩︎
5. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bitcoin.asp ↩︎
6. https://www.webopedia.com/crypto/learn/crypto-memes/ ↩︎
7. https://www.cointree.com/learn/crypto-memes/ ↩︎
8. https://pocketoption.com/blog/en/news-events/humor/bitcoin-meme/ ↩︎
9. https://pocketoption.com/blog/en/news-events/humor/bitcoin-meme/ ↩︎
10. https://www.planetcompliance.com/crypto-compliance/top-10-scandals-rocked-blockchain-world/ ↩︎
11. https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/2024-05-30-financial-commentator-peter-schiff-s-satirical-take-on-bitcoin-investment-8790472660210 ↩︎
12. https://www.onesafe.io/blog/can-satire-change-perception-bitcoin-savings-solution ↩︎
13. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Stop_accepting_cryptocurrency_donations ↩︎