- The Queen has appeared to have expressed interest in blockchain technology in a letter to the president of the British Blockchain Association
- However, the letter was a standard polite reply after Dr. Naseem Naqvi sent her the sixth edition of The Journal of The British Blockchain Association
- Thankfully, the crypto community didn’t buy into the baiting efforts of the Financial Times
A letter from The Queen’s office had the potential to leave the blockchain and cryptocurrency community with egg on its face this week, which the Financial Times pretended meant that the monarch was “interested” in blockchain. Thankfully however the community didn’t fall for it, instead calling out the publication for their shoddy tactics.
The Queen Receives Blockchain Journal
The letter in question was posted on LinkedIn by Dr. Naseem Naqvi, the president of The British Blockchain Association, and was a response to his sending The Queen a copy of the sixth edition of The Journal of The British Blockchain Association (JBBA).
The reply Dr. Naqvi posted was not actually from The Queen herself, but was instead from one Poppy Whitworth of the Buckingham Palace Private Secretary’s Office. Miss Whitworth said that The Queen had thanked Dr. Navqi for sending her the publication, adding that Her Majesty was “interested to learn that the publication is the first open access blockchain research journal available both in print and online.”
Royal Shredder Gets Some Practice
The truth is that the odds of The Queen being even slightly aware that such an item had found its way into her personal in-tray are about as high as her abdicating, with all such consignments heading to the in-house sorting office where most are binned and some are given a cursory glance.
Those that are afforded the latter privilege receive the same standard response received by Dr. Navqi, with a few words taken from the package’s covering note to phrase the response.
Then it heads for the royal shredder.
Blockchain Community Calls Out Financial Times
The Financial Times, ever the blockchain and Bitcoin bashers, chose to run with the headline ‘The Queen Expresses and Interest in Blockchain’, presumably to bait the crypto community into getting all giddy with excitement about The Queen’s sudden and unexpected interest in blockchain (compared to, say, COVID and Brexit).
Fortunately however the crypto public are a little more savvy these days, and the FT’s ambitions were quickly exposed:
The Queen blockchain thing is one of the saddest press stunts I’ve ever seen
— Neeraj K. Agrawal (@NeerajKA) November 24, 2020
what a bullshit article and headline.
She literally had a “thanks for sending me your stuff” note written.
— Joko ⚡️ (@jokoono) November 24, 2020
Why is this even news? The Queen has been sending polite periodic letters acknowledging receipt of the journal since its inception (i.e. for years).
— Michel Rauchs (@mrauchs) November 24, 2020
So we can say with hand on heart (and sword on shoulder) that, no, The Queen wasn’t interested to learn about the existence of the Journal of The British Blockchain Association, and no, she doesn’t own any Bitcoin.
