In its very essence, Crypto is an anti-establishment phenomenon. Hence, it comes as no surprise that the percentage of explicit Covid-19 conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers is disproportionately high. The creation of Bitcoin itself by an unknown individual calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto is also prone to conspiracy theories. Dutch crypto analyst PlanB with the Twitter handle @100trillionUSD has earned 1.7 million followers through his S2F BTC price model and his opposition to the Covid-19 vaccination regiment.
The S2F BTC price model
In March 2019, PlanB introduced his Stock-to-Flow (S2F) BTC price model and released an update in April 2020. In essence, the S2F model adopts approaches to valuing scarce precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum. PlanB suggests that Bitcoin is an as scarce (digital) resource as precious metals with limited availability of 21 million units. In the S2F price model, Stock is the number of the existing Bitcoins, and Flow is the ongoing creation of Bitcoins via mining.
PlanB‘s S2F model has indeed correctly predicted BTC price (with some variation) since its release. However, the forecast was wrong for the end of 2021. That’s when the BTC price should have been at $100,000, according to the S2F model. BTC ended 2021 with a price below $50,000.
The Covid-19 conspiracy thinking
PlanB has become increasingly involved in spreading Covid-19 conspiracy theories and campaigning against mandatory vaccination in recent months. He retweeted an invitation from the World Economic Forum (WEF) to the 2021 Annual Meeting, which was themed Great Reset. The WEF and its Great Reset meeting are the starting point of conspiracy theories surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. WEF supporters include large corporations and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is at the center of Covid19 conspiracists.
The original tweet with a facsimile of the WEF invitation to a Dutch minister came from Willem Middelkoop (@wmiddelkoop), another Dutch crypto analyst, Covid-19 vaccination skeptic, and government critics. Most recently, PlanB feared that Twitter might suspend his account because of his Covid-19 tweets.
We don’t necessarily share all the views of PlanB and his colleagues but criticism of government actions from Covid-19 lockdowns to the pandemic-related money glut is entirely appropriate. Crypto is, after all, the money of the anti-establishment movement.
