From Skeptics to Believers: The 5 Biggest U-Turns in Crypto History

Some called Bitcoin a scam, a speculative bubble, or a useless technology. Then they changed their minds — sometimes quietly, sometimes spectacularly. These reversals are anything but trivial: they reveal how the pressure of market forces, hard data, and financial opportunity can ultimately override even the most deeply held convictions.

From economists to major bank CEOs and heads of state, the profile of those who converted is as varied as it is surprising. Here are the five most significant U-turns in crypto history — and what they tell us about the maturity of the sector.

When Economists and Bankers Capitulate to Bitcoin

Nouriel Roubini, nicknamed “Dr. Doom” for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, is arguably the most vocal critic Bitcoin has ever had. Testifying before the U.S. Senate in 2018, he called cryptocurrencies the “mother of all scams.” Yet in 2023, he co-founded a real-world asset (RWA) token project in the United Arab Emirates — a spectacular capitulation from the man who had declared that blockchain was “the most overhyped technology in human history.”

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, called Bitcoin a “fraud” in 2017, threatening to fire any trader at his bank who bought it. Just a few years later, JPMorgan launched its own crypto custody services, its internal JPM Coin token, and began offering wealthy clients access to Bitcoin funds. The reversal is complete — and highly profitable.

Institutions and Governments That Flipped Their Position

BlackRock embodied institutional skepticism until 2022. Its CEO, Larry Fink, had described Bitcoin as an “index of money laundering” back in 2017. By 2024, BlackRock had launched the fastest-adopted spot Bitcoin ETF in U.S. ETF history — the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) — accumulating more than $17 billion in assets under management within just a few weeks. An absolute record that illustrates the sheer power of institutional reversal.

El Salvador represents the most emblematic case at the state level. Before 2021, the country had no crypto policy whatsoever. Then President Nayib Bukele made Bitcoin legal tender — a world first. Despite criticism from the IMF and extreme BTC volatility, El Salvador maintained and reinforced its accumulation strategy, now holding more than 6,000 BTC in its national treasury.

The Paul Krugman Case: The Economist Who Still Won’t Admit It

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, wrote in 1998 that “by 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” He repeated the same mistake with Bitcoin, comparing it to a tulip bubble on multiple occasions between 2013 and 2022. While Krugman has not officially capitulated, his criticism has softened considerably across market cycles — a sign that even the most resistant voices are beginning to accept the permanence of the crypto phenomenon.

These five trajectories share one common thread: the reality of the numbers has consistently overridden ideological conviction. Whether it is Bitcoin’s ten-year performance (+30,000% since 2013), the liquidity of derivatives markets, or measurable institutional adoption, the data has gradually eroded the arguments of even the most hardened skeptics. In a sector where market sentiment shifts as fast as prices do, U-turns are not a sign of weakness — they are often the mark of honest analysis in the face of new facts.