The current uproar is very similar to the time of the Mt. Gox collapse. When that incident happened, friends I had taught how to buy Bitcoin and people who came to my meetups to learn were shouting, "The CEO of Bitcoin has been arrested!", "Bitcoin is finished!", and "I wish I'd never bought Bitcoin!" They were so anxious, the direct messages and phone calls never stopped.
At the time, most people thought Bitcoin had a "CEO." The media itself had a shallow understanding, so they actually reported it in a way that was misleading.
But looking back now, I don't think there has ever been such an event that spread awareness of Bitcoin as quickly as the Mt. Gox incident.
In Japan in particular, it was covered on television news every day, and just a week after the collapse, awareness had spread to the point where most people had "heard the word Bitcoin at least once." I've seen a lot of confusion on my timeline about "Epstein being Satoshi," and it's prompted people to start reading Bitcoin's white paper and researching its history for the first time. People who previously didn't know much about it but had bought it on a whim are now starting to ask themselves, "What exactly is Bitcoin?" and get to the bottom of it. Just as the Mt. Gox scandal ultimately led to the biggest increase in awareness, I feel the Epstein scandal will ultimately serve as an opportunity to deepen our understanding of Bitcoin and its history.
