By
Steve Muchoki
April 18th, 2024
Bitcoin has recently been the focus of media and investors attention as both a long-term safe haven asset and digital currency.
The price of bitcoin (BTC) has hit a new all-time high of 2999.91, according to the CoinMarketCap’s Bitcoin Price Index. Currently it is trading at $2,835, with market capitalization nearly $46 billion.
Bitcoin has recently got much more media coverage than in 2013 that is considered to be golden time of the cryptocurrency.
Media companies and investment firms in South Korea, India, Australia and Japan share the opinion that Bitcoin can serve as an alternative monetary and financial system and can even surpass the value of certain reserve currencies in the future. According to the recent report of ABC News, a national news service in Australia, this can happen in the next 10 years if Bitcoin sustains its current exponential growth.
Jameson Lopp, BitGo engineer, as well as other cryptocurrency experts suggests that investors and traders should consider basing off the dominance index of Bitcoin on the global M1 supply against currencies such as the USD, instead of altcoins in the cryptocurrency market.
There is still a long way ahead if Bitcoin aims to surpass the value of reserve currencies as now it accounts for around 0.14 percent of global M1 money supply. However, as far as investors and Bitcoin enthusiasts believes in the idea of the cryptocurrency becoming the alternative financial network, the dominance index of Bitcoin should be compared to the M1 money index.
The fact that such media companies as ABC News and such experts as Jameson Lopp even bring up the M1 money index into discussions about Bitcoin proves that it stands to gain mainstream adoption.
Japan has already proved itself as a leader of Bitcoin adoption. Leading airlines, electronics retailers and some of the country’s most well-known and influential companies accept Bitcoin as digital currency rather than as digital gold and investment.
More than 300,000 Japanese merchants and tens of thousands of convenience stores plan to start accepting Bitcoin soon.
Genki Oda, the president of BITPoint, the company that led the deal with Peach – Japan’s largest budget airline – to accept Bitcoin, stated: “We’re holding discussions with a retail-related company. By going through a company providing payment terminal services to shops, we have the possibility of increasing its use at one stroke. It’s easier than talking to lots of individual retailers. We’re also talking to a big convenience store operator about using it.”
China strives to keep up. Country’s largest mainstream media company People’s Daily has recently defined Bitcoin as digital gold, further validating its legitimacy.
Nowadays, we cannot but notice the overall interest in Bitcoin. Investors and mainstream media outlets from all over the world have already started adopting Bitcoin. Bitcoin arouses global interest as both a long-term safe haven asset and digital currency. The only technical issue left to solve is scaling to lessen fees in order to facilitate the mainstream adoption of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s competitor Ethereum also stands the pace. Its price has hit a new all-time high of $257, according to the CoinMarketCap’s Ethereum Price Index. Currently it is trading at $255 level, with market capitalization nearly $23.45 billion.