Opinion: Why Catholics Should Care About Bitcoin, by Eric Sammons

By Eric Sammons, Crisis Magazine, Feb. 26, 2021

Eric Sammons is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. He is the author, most recently, of The Old Evangelization: How to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did (Catholic Answers, 2017).

It’s been a predictable cycle over the past few years: the price of Bitcoin rapidly rises, and news feeds are filled with Bitcoin-related articles. Heck, I even wrote one of those articles for the Federalist four years ago when Bitcoin was trading around $1,000. Then the price falls or is stable, and Bitcoin returns to the shadows, ignored by the mainstream. Well, the Bitcoin price has had another of its stratospheric rises—this time surpassing $50,000—and so again Bitcoin is dominating the news…and again you have an article from me on the topic.

But this is Crisis Magazine, not CryptoCrisis Magazine, so why should a Catholic in particular care about Bitcoin? After all, Bitcoin was originally made popular by anarchists and drug-dealers, and lately it’s become a plaything of tech titans like Elon Musk—not exactly the typical Mass-going Catholic crowd.   …