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

The Bitcoin Obituary List

Bitcoin obituaries, better known as Bitcoin death lists, archive public statements, headlines, articles, tweets, and predictions declaring bitcoin dead, dying, finished, worthless, or inevitably headed to zero. These independently tracked lists preserve every notable death call from journalists, economists, bankers, politicians, and bitcoin’s most notorious critics.

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

Google Trends chart on the search phrase “bitcoin is dead,” over the last 12 months.

Google Trends shows the public plays along too, as this year, worldwide searches for “bitcoin is dead” hit a perfect 100 during the week of Jan. 31 through Feb. 7, 2026. More recently, during the week of May 30 through June 6, the score slipped to 52, and this past week the death-watch chatter practically vanished, scraping a measly 12.

475 Death Notices, 21 in 2026

Among the trackers keeping score, bitcoindeaths.com has counted at least 475 bitcoin death notices, and the math makes the graveyard look expensive. Buying $100 of BTC after every declaration would have cost $47,500, now worth roughly $65,606, leaving an $18,106 profit.

Screenshot via bitcoindeaths.com.

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.”

2026 Still Hangs a Bit Lower Than Average

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.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in December 2024 stated:

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

Bitcoin Critics Smell Blood, but History Has Burned Them Before

Bitcoin’s digital gold looks far less shiny today, trading 50% below its all-time high (ATH) just above $126,000 from the first week of October 2025, with bitcoin still grinding through a long-running bear market. A 50% drawdown looks tame beside BTC’s collapse from its 2017 ATH, the obituary record year, into the brutal wreckage that defined 2018 and 2019.

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.