Decades of psychological research on human aggression and violence have resulted in scientific definitions of these terms which aggression researchers agree upon. In psychology, aggression is defined as “𝑏𝑒ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑟 that is 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑚 another person who is 𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑚” (Allen & Anderson, 2017). Further, the scientific definition of violence is an extreme form of aggression that has severe physical harm as its goal, such as maiming or death (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). However, in everyday language we often conflate these terms and use them in a non-scientific manner. For instance, most people would describe a salesperson who tries really hard to sell you something as 𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑒 or a really bad storm as 𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡. Neither of these descriptions fit the scientific definition of aggression or violence as the salesperson nor the storm intend harm. Therefore, bitcoin is not aggression or violence as bitcoin cannot have intentions (nor is it a behavior)—bitcoin is simply software.

Sources

Allen & Anderson, 2017: http://www.craiganderson.org/wp-content/uploads/caa/abstracts/2015-2019/17AA2.pdf

Anderson & Bushman, 2002: https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/Psyc591Readings/AndersonBushman2002.pdf