Bitcoin is gaining more ground

According to Dr. Garrick Hileman, an economic historian at the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics, the popularity of Bitcoin in the luxury market as a payment method is increasing at a rapid rate, due to the inefficiencies and high fees of traditional banking systems.

The vast majority of items in the luxury market that include paintings, antiques, and rare collections are priced at tens of thousands of dollars in minimum. Last week, the art industry observed the $450 million sale of an original Da Vinci painting and most of the works presented by Christie’s were priced in the range of $1 million to $100 million.

Traditional banking systems and financial networks charge transaction fees based on the amount of the transaction. For instance, a wire payment of over $100,000 could cost the sender nearly $4,000 in transaction fees, which is impractical and inefficient, especially if the sender settles a large number of payments on a regular basis.

In contrast, Bitcoin transaction fees are dependent on the size of the transactions, not the amount. Hence, a transaction which costs over a million dollars can be settled with a $1 to $2 fee, which is substantially smaller than a bank settlement fee that could rise up to the tens of thousands of dollars.