Bitcoin Created By The CIA? Chinese Professor Jiang Xueqin Makes Bold Claim

Jiang, a Beijing-based commentator with 2.3 million YouTube subscribers, framed the theory around what he described as a game-theory process of elimination. He said the standard origin story “makes no sense,” asking why someone would spend years or even decades developing blockchain technology only to release it to the world for free and then disappear.

“So then you have to ask yourself three questions,” Jiang said. “First of all is who would have the technology and the expertise to create something like the blockchain. Second of all, you have to ask who would benefit from this blockchain creation. The third question you want to ask is why would they keep it secret?”

He pushed the argument further by suggesting that the network’s value depends on people believing it sits outside political control. “The answer is only if people believe that this was transparent, open and beyond authority, beyond political control, would it have value,” Jiang said. “So the moment people recognize that this is a CIA operation, people won’t put their money into blockchain. People won’t put their money into Bitcoin.”

Professor Jiang Xueqin claims bitcoin was created by the CIA.

“Why would you spend years, possibly decades, in your basement creating a new technology and then just give it for free to the world? That makes no sense.”

That line of rebuttal goes to the core of the dispute. Jiang’s theory hinges on origin and hidden control; but the facts about Bitcoin’s design makes those questions far less important than he suggests, because the network is public, open-source, and maintained by participants rather than by a central operator.

MDB, another Bitcoin commentator, focused on one of Jiang’s specific questions: “Where are the servers of Bitcoin located?” He said that question alone showed the core problem and lack of understanding by Xueqin. “Bitcoin does not run on one company’s servers,” MDB wrote. “Bitcoin runs on a distributed network of nodes spread across the world, which is exactly why it is hard to censor, shut down, or control.”

At press time, BTC traded at $74,886.