2010, a developer purchased two pizzas using the forum Bitcointalk.org. He paid 10,000 bitcoins for the pizza. The price of Bitcoin today is 2X the price of ounce of Gold. Had the developer kept his 10,000 bitcoins, he would have had $25 million dollars today. In 2017, Digital currencies had a market cap of $100 billion. You can track the crytocurrency market cap in real time at coinmarketcap.com. So what is the reason behind the incredible growth in value of Bitcoin?
Major investors are interested in US, China and South Korea: investors are also more bullish on the success of blockchain – the groundbreaking technology behind bitcoin. Blockchain is a game changer because of: 1. Trusted ledger based on a mathematical calculation and peer network validation, 2. Incentivized system that pays miners for their work - coins, 3. Decentralized approach which reduces dependency on financial institutions, 4. Privacy which allows people to separate their identity from their transactions.
More people are using Bitcoin: In April, Japan’s new legislation allows retailers to being accepting Bitcoin as legal tender, followed by Australia in July of 2017. Banks now trust Bitcoin with 10 financial institutions using Ripple to send real-time payments. Retailers are accepting Bitcoin with 5.8 million people using crypto-currency wallets.
Bitcoin scaling agreement has been reached: 56 companies in 21 countries have reached consensus on a settlement process.