What Will Happen to Bitcoin in the Next Decade?
What is bitcoin? What changes have come about after its advent? And what will be the future of this cryptocurrency? Let’s evaluate the future of this currency in the coming decade.
It was assumed to be a big leap in the finance sector when bitcoin came into existence over a decade ago. But that innovation has faintly transpired as today. The cryptocurrencies fierce first decade has seen many vices, wrong steps, and huge price changes. After gaining a record price of near about $69,000 in November 2021, bitcoin came down by 75% to $17,200 by the end of November 2022.
But optimism about cryptocurrency has been doubled by investors and cryptocurrency enthusiasts. So keeping this in view, the approaching decade could prove to be important to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency from a broader perspective.
A Compromised Vision
Bitcoin was supposed to be an undefined and circulated alternative to government- and central-bank-controlled fiat currencies as visualized by its fictitious inventor’s papers issued on 31st of October, 2008.
Agreement about a transaction in the bitcoin network is not dependent on a third-party mediator. On the contrary, it is done by a blockchain method- which is a group of computers that are connected on a network and share resources, such as printers and files. It is achieved with electronic ledgers for verifying and authenticating a transaction.
But after 14 years, although the primary thought seems to come to terms with reality. Decentralization has caved in into centralization. The price of the bitcoin is controlled by the investors who are the biggest stakeholders in the cryptocurrency.
The efficiency of massive mining farms has forced o sacrifice the democratization of printing money through mining. The technology of bitcoin is troubled by mounting difficulty, giving rise to a long history of forks and altcoins.
But these negative points are stabilized by the development of a flourishing and vital economic system for cryptocurrency. As of December 2022, the cryptocurrency market, which did not exist a decade ago, is worth about $853 billion.
Since Bitcoin’s debut a decade ago, almost 22,000 cryptocurrencies have been created and are being traded on exchanges.
Bitcoin has become a household name and is hailed as a quick fix for many complicated problems. After prime uncertainty, investors are also lining up for crypto-asset as a kind of investment. On June 9, 2021, El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender- the first country to make it legal. Though bitcoin can be used for any kind of transaction, the U.S. dollar remains to be El Salvador’s primary currency.
Evaluating the Next Decade
The coming decade could be of importance to cryptocurrencies’ emergence. At present cryptocurrency is steady as a store of value and a channel for everyday transactions.
As governments around the world, such as Japan, have declared it a valid form of payment for goods Institutional investors are impatient to do the required work and get benefitted from the volatility in its prices.
But the troubles with scaling and security have stopped both things from taking place. One of the main problems is the stealing of cryptocurrencies from the exchanges by hackers. If bitcoin becomes more secure it can lead to adoption on a large scale. In the coming 10 years bitcoin will turn out to be very significant and will have a different stand.
For bitcoin to become important as a method of payment and as an asset will not happen unless there is technological improvement in its system. Bitcoin’s blockchain should be compatible enough to tackle millions of transactions in a very short period. And for this purpose, many technologies such as lighting networks indicate an uprise in functions.
Huge credit goes to considerable media coverage, the advent of an ecosystem has already originated in the past couple of years. As rules are set to keep track, the system is going to enlarge. The next decade is going to bring into the picture the vast field of low-cost, high-speed payments that will change the value exchange just as the advent of the internet changed the field of information technology.
The price of bitcoin witnessed a lot of ups and downs in 2021 and 2022. The price of Bitcoin almost hit $70,000 in 2021, before falling to around $40,000. With Bitcoin prices falling as low as $15,599, 2022 was even worse,
However, big banks are keeping an eye on cryptocurrency.
According to Citi Bitcoin can take the place of the currency of choice for international trade. This is perceived as both PayPal (PYPL) and Tesla (TSLA) made investments in cryptocurrency in early 2021. Tesla bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, and PayPal made a bid to buy crypto custodian Curv.
Although Citi noted that Bitcoin’s future is still not certain, as it’s on the verge of acceptance by the mainstream. According to Citi, institutional investors are showing interest in cryptocurrency, but problems regarding custody, security, and capital efficiency are still not clear for digital assets.
