Top 5 incorrect things often said about bitcoin

Please!  just stop.  I will keep coming back to update this as I see more errors in the wild 🙂  If you think i'm wrong, please let me know.

1) "Bitcoin is Deflationary"

One way people like to posture as though they had a clue is to repeat other people.  This works reasonably well in established subjects but in bitcoin there aren't that many established texts on the topic.  So, this strategy backfires terribly.  Did Krugman use this word?  Must be true then right?

Lets make it 100% crystal clear: bitcoin currently is inflating at 2.5 billion satoshi every 10 minutes.  End of story.  Stop calling attention to your own idiocy by saying bitcoin is deflationary.  OK, maybe it is less inflationary than fiat, maybe the inflation is public and algorithmic, maybe in a century or so it will be very slightly deflationary due to people losing more coins than are issued.  Well why not say these things then instead of being completely wrong?

2) "Bitcoin is unregulated"

This proof of ignorance statement comes in close at number two.  It's kind of fun to hear somebody say this.  Look around the room at the coin users in the audience making mental notes to themselves: try not to laugh, total cluelessness noted.  Lets face it: Bitcoin is the most regulated currency ever invented.  Not only are all transactions public and audited by any participant but every satoshi created is 100% mathematically regulated and auditable by any person forever.  Imagine if you asked Bank of America to submit to that kind of regulation?  lol, right?  Perhaps you meant to say that anonymous currency exchanges operated in eastern europe are not regulated by New York City commissioners?  If that's what you meant, you should have said it.

3) "Bitcoin is encrypted money"

Nope!  Guess again.  The bitcoin network operates in plain text.  Nothing is encrypted.  Sure if you want to encrypt your private key on your own dime that is probably a smart move, but that is optional and not part of the network anyway.  Bitcoin is public money, all transactions are public and unencrypted, and the entire money supply is public and unencrypted.  If you meant to say that it is possible to encrypt private keys, or that the network relies on cryptography for digital signatures, you should have said those things.

4 and 5) "Bitcoin can't be confiscated" / "Bitcoin is difficult to secure"

Seriously, people say both those things together.  As if logic just wasn't applicable to this arena.  In case you were wondering, yes, those two sentences are obviously contradictory.  Yes, they are both also wrong.  Just ask Ross Ulbricht about the first.  It might be easier than any other previous kind of money to hide, but that doesn't mean thieves won't take it.  It is possible to confiscate bitcoin.  On the other hand, bitcoin is easier to secure than any other currency or form or wealth.  Can you put 100kg of gold on a piece of paper and hide it in a book?  Can you hold a million dollars in a passphrase in your mind that nobody other than you could touch?  These things are easy to do with bitcoin.  And that is just the beginning.  Multisignature techniques allow you to secure money in ways that make it even more secure.