Tucker Carlson refuses to buy Bitcoin, says it’s a CIA operation

Carlson claims Bitcoin enables “totalitarian control,” warning that digital currencies can command obedience.

Tucker Carlson has claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) created Bitcoin (BTC), saying the mystery surrounding its founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, makes him distrust the cryptocurrency.

Speaking at a Turning Point USA event on October 22, the conservative commentator said he would never invest in Bitcoin because he believes it was designed by financial elites to control society.

Bitcoin’s ‘CIA Origins’ Theory Gets New Airtime

In his speechCarlson admitted that while he loved the idea of ​​financial autonomy that Bitcoin represented, the reality was very different, with crypto becoming a “scam” run by a “coalition of beneficiaries,” to increase their control over American society.

“I am really afraid of a digital currency because that is totalitarian control,” he claimed. “If you can punish people, if you can empty their bank accounts and keep them from eating, you will have total obedience.”

The former Fox News host added that he was a gold buyer and doesn’t invest in things he doesn’t understand. He wondered how a trillion-dollar asset could have an anonymous creator and why Satoshi’s estimated one million BTC were never moved.

“No one can explain to me who Satoshi was, the creator of Bitcoin, this mysterious man who apparently died,” Carlson said. “I grew up in DC, mainly in a government family, so CIA,” he added.

The theory that a government agency created Bitcoin has been around for a while, but Carlson’s comments have brought renewed attention to it. That idea gained some attention in 2020 when The Washington Post revealed that the CIA secretly owned Swiss encryption company Crypto AG for decades and used it to spy on more than 120 countries by selling them counterfeit devices.

Within hours of Carlson’s speech airing, Bitcoin supporters disputed his claims about X. Strike CEO Jack Mallers wrote:

“If you think it’s important to know who created Bitcoin, you don’t understand. Bitcoin is open source. No one has special rights, and anyone can verify that.”

Broadcaster Max Keizer has also dismissed the CIA’s claim as it contradicts the well-documented history of Bitcoin’s development. Others mocked the media personality’s distrust, with Marty Bent, host of the Tales from the Crypt podcast, noting:

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“Even if the CIA created Bitcoin (which it doesn’t), anyone can check the code to see what it does. That’s all that matters.”

Still, some agreed with Carlson’s broader concerns about government power. One of them, Helius Labs CEO Mert Mumtaz, laughed off the CIA theory and argued that Carlson’s fear of financial surveillance is justified. He warned that crypto can be used for bad purposes instead of good ones if it is built poorly.

The Enduring Mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto

The search for Satoshi has become something of a global puzzle after the person (or persons) behind the name disappeared completely from public view in 2011.

Last year, an HBO documentary suggested that the late cryptographer Len Sassaman might be Satoshi. A few days earlier, the film’s director pointed to Peter Todd as the man behind the pseudonym, but the former Bitcoin developer firmly denied this claim. The same year, a British judge formally ruled that computer scientist Craig Wright, who claimed to be Satoshi, was not the creator of BTC.

Despite the setbacks, people have not given up on solving the mystery. Some, like crypto attorney James Murphy, have taken the legal route, suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in April 2025 over data that could reveal Satoshi’s identity.