Evolution
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to control its creation and management, rather than relying on central authorities.
In 2017 the number of businesses accepting bitcoin continues to increase. In January 2017, NHK reported the number of online stores accepting bitcoin in Japan had increased 4.6 times over the past year. BitPay CEO Stephen Pair declared the company’s transaction rate grew 3× from January 2016 to February 2017, and explained usage of bitcoin is growing in B2B supply chain payments.
Bitcoin gains more legitimacy among lawmakers and legacy financial companies. For example, Japan passed a law to accept bitcoin as a legal payment method and Russia has announced that it will legalize the use of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. And Norway’s largest online bank, Skandiabanken, integrate bitcoin accounts.
In March 2017, the number of GitHub projects related to bitcoin passed 10,000.
Exchange trading volumes continue to increase. For the 6-month period ending March 2017, Mexican exchange Bitso saw trading volume increase 1500%. Between January and May 2017 Poloniex saw an increase of more than 600% active traders online and regularly processed 640% more transactions.
In June 2017, the bitcoin symbol was encoded in Unicode version 10.0 at position U+20BF in the Currency Symbols block.
On 1 August 2017 bitcoin split into two derivative digital currencies, the classic bitcoin (BTC) and the Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
According to latest statistics from October, Bitcoin has climbed from below $1,000 this year to a record above $5,800, showing how quickly investor interest in the digital currency has increased.
The number of digital currency storage „wallets” from Blockchain.info has nearly doubled from last year, while the lack of a selloff in other digital currencies indicates that new money is flowing into bitcoin.
On November 2, the bitcoin price achieved a new all-time high at $7,150, entering the $7,000 region for the first time in history.
Advantages of Bitcoin
- it can be a way to invest and earn from the sale-purchase – money can be earned, it all depends on your ability to understand the system;
- you can buy products / services with them;
- low-level payouts, payment processors do not have very high commissions;
- traders are safer because personal data is not available at the time of payment via bitcoin. Due to this process, payments are safer.
- cryptographically speaking, the system is transparent and neutral, no one can intervene to change it.
- payments can be made 24/7, without worrying about banks and their program.
For further information: Bitcoincharts