Bitcoin Has Been Declared Dead 21 Times in 2026, Yet It Won’t Stay Buried

With bitcoin still holding above $60,000 and 19 full weeks left in 2026, critics have already buried it 21 times this year.

Since 2010, bitcoiners have kept receipts on every published editorial declaring bitcoin officially dead.

This year has already delivered 21 so-called obituaries with plenty of 2026 left, and the latest death sentence came from bitcoin’s longtime detractor and resident gold bug, Peter Schiff.

Schiff’s death call for bitcoin, opined on June 16, 2026, reads like the same broken record:

“But for all practical purposes, for most investors, it will feel like zero… Bitcoin will lose over 99% of its market value, even if it still trades above zero.”

Based on the tally from 2010 through 2026, nobody buried bitcoin harder than 2017, when critics cranked out a record 93 obituaries, followed by 74 in 2018. At the other extreme, 2012 somehow produced a clean zero. Bitcoin’s earliest years, from 2010 through 2012, were comparatively quiet, when hardly anyone bothered writing its epitaph.

Across the full 17-year stretch, the death count averages roughly 27.9 obituaries annually. More recently, the undertakers have been less predictable, with just 10 so-called death calls in 2024, while 2026 remains slightly below bitcoin’s long-running obituary average. In addition to Schiff, other critics included in the death list are people like David Tait, Steve Keen, George Noble, Paul Krugman, and Ulrich Bindseil.

“It’s not digital gold — it’s digital Benjamins.”

The death calls will keep coming, but will bitcoin actually die or hit zero? Supporters and even plenty watching from the sidelines doubt it, regardless of how many times Krugman, Schiff and other perennial critics read bitcoin its last rites.