The passing of Queen Elizabeth the Second ends a journey for bitcoin, which over the years has progressed through the ranks, with only the Queen left to mention its awareness.
The first senior official to mention bitcoin was the then British Chancellor George Osborne in 2014. France joined four years later with their Minister of Finance waving the crypto flag.
It was preceded by the still Russian president Vladimir Putin who fell ill with blockchain in 2017 and even met Vitalik Buterin, ethereum’s co-founder, in better times.
Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, also mentioned blockchain in 2018, with only two left as late as 2019 until bitcoin reached the most senior person on earth.
The president of the United States, and standing above them all, the Queen who until yesterday, was the most famous living person in the world.
The president of the United States, then Donald John Trump, did mention bitcoin in July 2019, though for the first time at such senior levels, and across the world including in China, he did so in a negative way, stating “I am not a fan of Bitcoin.”
Negative or positive, the awareness barometer had nonetheless moved, with only the Queen left for there to be no ladder any further for bitcoin to climb.
Alas the Queen never mentioned it, for very understandable reasons. She was extremely old, at 94 when Trump tweeted bitcoin.
Whether she was aware of the blockchain, bitcoin, or any crypto element, is unknown. We wouldn’t be surprised either way, with it now no longer relevant.
His son however, the new King Charles the Third, is aware of bitcoin. Asked about it by a member of the public in May 2019, he first said “I don’t know about that one.”
After a few seconds of reflection, he added: “No wait a minute. Block… Blockchain? Yes, yes, very interesting development.”
So the King knows we exist. The Queen maybe never did. And with that ends a 14 year old journey for bitcoin, which gradually climbed from bureaucracies deep within the civil service asking what is it, to… well, now to the King.
