'Cryptocurrency Will Not Die': Mainstream Media on Bitcoin in 2019

In late 2017, Bitcoin piqued the interest of millions of people hoping to capitalize on the ongoing frenzy and, as a result, drew the attention of various traditional media outlets.

The industry's Wild West days are over, and media outlets - most of whom were quick to bury Bitcoin at least once over that period - are now focusing on how cryptocurrencies are entering the agenda of Big Tech and the People's Bank of China.

Here are the main highlights of 2019's Bitcoin and blockchain coverage gathered from mainstream media.

Hernández, who keeps all his money in Bitcoin, says that he is not the only Venezuelian relying on digital assets - in fact, as much as $1 million worth of bolívars was traded for Bitcoin in a single day in April via LocalBitcoins.com, a peer-to-peer exchange.

One of its major points was that Russian agents allegedly used cryptocurrency at numerous stages in their online efforts to disrupt the election, hoping to "Capitalize on the perceived anonymity of cryptocurrencies." Specifically, Mueller's report revealed that the "Systems used in the hacking of the Democratic Party" were paid for with Bitcoin, as were online hosting services used by websites that published the hacked materials and participated in "The targeting of disinformation at American voters."

While cryptocurrencies are known for the anonymity they provide, there is another side to the coin: All Bitcoin transactions are posted to the publicly accessible blockchain, therefore making it possible to identify the sender's wallet address and track their entire transaction history.

The publication suggested that it wasn't Facebook's arrival into the space, as many believed, but something more niche - an event called the Bitcoin halving, when the rewards to miners are cut in half every four years.

Perhaps CNBC was too early to take the Bitcoin halving into consideration, but the fact that a major news source is covering the technology's complexities for a mainstream audience is a sign that Bitcoin is not as underground as we used to think.

Date of publication: Dec. 2.The New Yorker published a story of Carlos Acevado - a public school teacher in Morrisania, the poorest congressional district in the U.S. - who shares his cryptocurrency knowledge as someone who got into Bitcoin back in 2014 with a group of his former students.

"I spent about $10 worth of Bitcoin on 20 coins of IOTA - because I didn't have one 'iota' of knowledge about trading crypto," he writes, describing a shameless, unenlightened attempt at getting rich that might recall some early memories for most cryptocurrency holders out there.