ECB’s Anti-Bitcoin Propaganda Debunked In Academic Rebuttal

As a response to the latest anti-Bitcoin paper by the European Central Bank (ECB), a new academic paper titled “Challenging Bias in the ECB’s Bitcoin Analysis” has been published. Authored by Murray A. Rudd, along with co-authors Allen Farrington, Freddie New, and Dennis Porter, the paper offers a comprehensive critique of a recent working paper by ECB officials Ulrich Bindseil and Jürgen Schaaf.

Dennis Porter, CEO and founder of Satoshi Action Fund, who initiated the paper with a few days announced the publication on X, stating, “₿REAKING: Full Academic Rebuttal to the anti-Bitcoin ECB paper officially published.”

The original ECB paper by Bindseil and Schaaf portrays BTC as a speculative asset with limited intrinsic value and significant risks. It criticized BTC’s volatility, lack of productive contribution, and wealth concentration, while advocating for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) as a superior solution for modern financial systems, as Bitcoinist reported.

The rebuttal systematically addresses and refutes the key assertions made by Bindseil and Schaaf:

#1 Bitcoin’s Political Lobbying Influence

Bindseil and Schaaf argue that the industry’s lobbying exerts disproportionate influence, skewing regulatory policy in its favor. The rebuttal counters this by highlighting the decentralized nature of Bitcoin. “not have a CEO, legal or marketing departments, or lobbyists: it is a neutral, global, leaderless protocol. Bitcoin advocates typically operate without the institutional backing enjoyed by the corporations that dominate the crypto industry,” the authors write.

They point out that traditional financial institutions spend far more on lobbying than the nascent industry noting that in 2023, crypto-related lobbying expenditures in the US constituted less than 1% of financial sector lobbying expenditures.

#2 Wealth Concentration

Addressing the claim that ownership is highly concentrated among a small number of large players, the rebuttal emphasizes that this view overlooks the widespread dispersion of BTC holdings. “Institutional and exchange wallets represent the holdings of diverse investors rather than single entities,” the authors explain. They note that many of the largest wallets belong to exchanges like Coinbase and Binance, as well as ETF issuers like BlackRock and Fidelity, who hold BTC on behalf of millions of users.

The authors also challenge the notion that wealth concentration in coins is inherently unfair. “They imply that any form of inequality is unjust, yet fail to explain why this applies—a free market for Bitcoin has been available to all since its inception,” they write. “Unlike the vast majority of cryptocurrency tokens (‘altcoins’), Bitcoin had a fair and public launch. There was no pre-launch distribution of Bitcoin, no ‘founder shares,’ and no venture capital backers purchasing Bitcoin at a discount.”

#3 Lack Of Productive Contribution

The ECB paper asserts…