It has become painfully obvious that various governments around the world have no love lost for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In Poland, things have gotten a bit out of hand in recent months. So much, even, that the country’s central bank, in concert with the Financial Supervision Authority, paid a popular YouTuber to slander cryptocurrencies. It’s a very disturbing turn of events, to say the very least.
Polish Central Bank Doesn’t Like Bitcoin
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion when it comes to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. So far, this has caused a fair few debates, as well as some interesting discussion on how one should officially label Bitcoin from a legal point of view. In Poland, it is obvious that Bitcoin has not been making any fans among central bankers and financial authorities so far. Instead, they have decided to slander Bitcoin and other currencies via a famous Polish YouTuber.
More specifically, the Polish central bank got in touch with Marcin Dubiel. Although most people have no idea who this person is, he became a topic of conversation when it comes to cryptocurrencies. One of his YouTube videos covered how he allegedly lost all of his money, which was designed to slander Bitcoin. Receiving over half a million views, the video caused a lot of people to quickly lose faith in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
In the video, Dubiel portrayed cryptocurrencies as a way to get rich quick. While it is true a lot of money can be made – and lost – with crypto, this form of money itself is never responsible for people’s losses. Instead, users have to make their own decisions after doing thorough research on their own. For some reason, Dubiel never mentioned any of that in this particular YouTube video.
As it turns out, the video was completely fake. Dubiel never lost any money because of cryptocurrency, as the entire video was fabricated in collaboration with the Polish central bank and the Financial Supervision Authority. Both institutions paid close to $30,000 to Dubiel to create this video and make all cryptocurrencies look like a terrible investment. The video also included a link to the central bank’s website which cited cryptocurrencies as being risky investments.
Earlier this week, the Polish central bank admitted it had carried out this campaign to trash virtual currencies, though it never explained why or what it had hoped to achieve by doing so. It is evident Dubiel could have refused to make this video, yet the allure of $30,000 was rather appealing. It is evident his credibility as a YouTuber is now completely destroyed, but it’s the price people pay for “shilling” specific content.
To make matters worse, this campaign was not just limited to Dubiel either. Apparently, the Polish central bank and FSA paid other popular YouTube channel owners similar amounts of money to make videos about cryptocurrencies and their risks as well. This is another major attempt to discredit this new form of money which poses a legitimate threat to banks and other financial institutions.
