The rising price of Bitcoin, reaching $450 at press time, follows several months of steady growth in Bitcoin price and transaction volumes, growing trade activity, particularly in Russia and South America, and continued expansion in the mining industry, all suggesting that Bitcoin is here to stay.
While the current price uptick may be a result of the April 20 release by developers of the code for Pieter Wuille’s Segregated Witness, it seems that the economic fundamentals are in place for Bitcoin to continue its steady advance.
This may be disappointing for naysayers such as Taavet Hinrikus, CEO of international payments app TransferWise who recently pronounced “Bitcoin is Dead” saying , “The bitcoin experiment, I think we can say, is over.”
After former Bitcoin XT developer Mike Hearn pronounced Bitcoin dead in January, a chorus of negativity has ensued as seen best on the website Bitcoin Obituaries which now pegs the number of times Bitcoin death’s has been declared at 101.
The Wall Street Journal doesn’t see it that way. In an April 19 article, it published an article saying: “The last 24 days mark the longest period in which bitcoin prices have been less volatile than gold prices, going back to 2010. Some point to the drop as a sign that investor perception of bitcoin is drawing closer to gold as a safe store of value.” And, as the article notes, “According to Wedbush Securities data, monthly bitcoin transactions increased from 200,000 in January 2012 to more than 6 million in March this year."
Bitcoin Has Stability
Statistics aggregated by companies such as Blockchain and Kaiko show a slow but steady increase in the health of Bitcoin on many measures over the past several months, including transaction volume, price, market capitalization and hash rate.
Despite technical challenges and uncertainty, Bitcoin price and transaction […]
