With the exception of a few recent dips that corrected quickly, Bitcoin has had an exceptionally strong year in 2017. The price has surged to all-time highs on several different occasions, and some are starting to suggest that it’s only just the beginning. Perhaps most outlandishly, one analyst who predicted strong growth this year said Bitcoin could hit $100,000 in 10 years. Furthermore, said analyst made this claim back in May, when Bitcoin was only about halfway to its more recent highs!
This is not meant to suggest that such forecasts are definitely correct. Many investment analysts also believe that even as this article is being written Bitcoin is in a “bubble” with the potential to burst. This could be true for a couple of different reasons. One is that China has tightened regulations on cryptocurrency usage, which is a significant blow. The other is that there’s a possibility some of the biggest investors will pull out of Bitcoin now that it’s reached heights some never saw coming, and that would weaken the overall price point and potentially cause a domino effect of investors jumping ship.
Even so, there’s no denying the current surge in Bitcoin price, and by extension popularity! If Bitcoin’s price is soaring at its current levels, it stands to reason that it’s become more valuable not just to investors but to people who wish to use it in their everyday lives. Investment and utility will likely feed into one another with a commodity like this. So that begs the question of what the main areas of growth have been for Bitcoin usage. This is actually trickier information to uncover than you might expect, but these are at least a few industries and types of businesses that stand out:
Mobile Payment – For one thing, we’re seeing more Bitcoin wallets and peer-to-peer money transfer options that make it easier for people to use Bitcoin in everyday transactions with friends. Perhaps even more importantly, however, PayPal merchants can accept Bitcoin, which ties the cryptocurrency to perhaps the most established method of digital payment in the world. It’s conceivable that people saw this development as making it both more mainstream and more acceptable to pay for goods and services via Bitcoin.
Online Gaming – Real money online gaming is a massive business, and sticking with the idea of PayPal for a moment, it’s one in which security is paramount. Gaming sites explain that using PayPal for deposits and withdrawals creates an extra layer of security, in that actual bank account details are never revealed. This has been true for some time, and now people are looking to Bitcoin as an even more secure option. Some of the top sites are now accepting cryptocurrency, and given that Bitcoin exists in part to facilitate secure and anonymous transactions, it’s becoming a popular alternative.
Online Retail – This is undoubtedly the biggest area of adoption, though retailers have actually been getting on board gradually for a few years now. It seems that every few months a new major online shopping destination begins to accept Bitcoin payments, with some of the biggest names being Expedia, Target, Overstock, and eGifter (which, by selling gift cards, opens the door to all kinds of other online stores).
These and other, smaller areas of growth are responsible at least in part for Bitcoin’s ongoing surge, and for the constant headlines you might be seeing about its increasing relevancy. Whether or not the trends continue, only time will tell.
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