Bitcoin is growing up
Signs that Bitcoin is maturing before our eyes...
Over the past few months, Bitcoin has entered a sort of adolescence - that awkward stage where things get a little clumsy, sometimes embarrassing, yet exciting and new.
Regulators, banksters, government, and even hardened sceptics have begun acknowledging that, yes, this Bitcoin and blockchain stuff is the real deal. It will have a lasting impact and long-term effects on the world economy and in our everyday lives. This was most clearly displayed recently at US Congress hearings with the SEC and CFTC. Of course, Luddites were also in attendance, dismissing the potential of cryptocurrency whilst clutching desperately to old-world fiat and fractional reserve economics.
More recently, Arizona has moved a bill forward to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for tax payments. In an attempt to promote the state as friendly to this burgeoning technology, the state is encouraging and propelling the adoption of the new technology, legitimising it in the eyes of an older generation that will, ironically, trust government more so than they would trust consensus and peer-to-peer decentralised technology.
On Thursday, the president of the European Central Bank admitted that the ECB will likely soon hold positions in Bitcoin. This, of course, would mean a significant investment on a much larger scale than the market of casual investors buying fractions of Bitcoin on Coinbase.
Having said that, Coinbase is the go-to on-ramp for new cryptocurrency investors. Soon, Coinbase will offer SegWit transactions of Bitcoin. Further implementation of SegWit, as more exchanges roll this technology out, will enable the lightning network to achieve full functionality and aid the scalability of Bitcoin to the extent that mass adoption may soon become reality. This could happen in weeks - not months - not years. It will move at an extremely rapid pace that could cause parabolic growth.
In the meantime, we see stocks dropping harshly over the past week. Combine this with significant wage growth in the United States. The average American worker may soon have more disposable money to invest - but may be fearful of investing in a plummeting stock market. In the past, this would mean an increase in gold and silver buying, which is happening to some extent. But is it possible that some investors may turn to cryptocurrency instead of stocks or gold with these signals for rapid growth in the near future?
Over the next few months, if SegWit and Lightning network implementation continue to grow, we might see Bitcoin blossom - past that awkward stage of puberty - and move toward adulthood. Surely there will be clumsy steps along the way, but this could be the year to celebrate Bitcoin's rite of passage into maturity.
*This is not professional trading advice - it's just my opinion!
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Upvoted.
I like the way you show examples and analogies of how SegWit can make a difference. When do you see other websites implementing this?
Once Coinbase rolls out SegWit in the next week or two, other exchanges will need to get on board to compete. By summer, most wallets and exchanges will be Segwit compliant, in my opinion.
The trick is discerning the actual professionals from the newbs who are pretending to know it all, and then turn tail at the first sight of a downtrend.
Or, conversely, just hodl through the ups and downs. It might not be as profitable, but it's a lot easier.
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