Bitcoin price has been hovering above $33,000 since the past 2-3 days. The market capitalization is $600B+ now and Bitcoin has stayed above this level only 27 days till now. The number one cryptocurrency broke all records and created new ATHs continuously since the last few months. Will it grow more? Price prediction of Bitcoin is really a tough game but definitely, the store-of-value is getting established. PayPal launched their new service in the US enabling users to buy, hold and sell Bitcoin sometimes and it generated a new retail investor class overnight. Bitcoin has 999,221 active addresses as of now and adoption is growing at an astounding rate. Crypto entrepreneur Willy Woo has recently compared the current stage of Bitcoin adoption with the early stage of the Internet.
Bitcoin is growing faster than the Internet
In terms of adoption, Bitcoin has almost the same user base of 1997’s Internet. But if we look at the growth rate, Bitcoin is growing faster. Willy’s calculation almost depicts twice the growth rate of Bitcoin in comparison to the Internet. Willy says: “Next 4 years on the current path will bring Bitcoin users to 1b people, that's the equivalent of 2005 for the Internet.” The comparison may look a bit odd to some people as the internet is a platform but Bitcoin is peer-to-peer money. The similarity of the Internet and Bitcoin is that both are disruptive technologies which threaten the habits of traditional businesses. Drawing a parallel between Bitcoin and the Internet is not at all illogical. In the early days of the Internet, people were sceptical about the damage caused by the Internet to humanity and we all know how the traditional media, governments and bureaucrats bash Bitcoin by calling it ‘punt’, ‘ponzi’ or ‘fraud’. Bitcoin obtained mainstream media sympathy starting from 2017 and it got altitudinous attention from Wall Street investors only since 2020. Let’s come back to the adoption rate. Calculating the rate of adoption of Bitcoin can be extremely difficult looking at the no of wallets as one user can have multiple wallets but there is no doubt that the user base is really growing astronomically.
Bitcoin adoption stage
Image Source - Technology Adoption Lifecycle
Willy is a Bitcoin maximalist. He may not see that other Altcoins are also growing rapidly but it is undeniable that when a normal investor enters into cryptocurrency, the first buy is generally Bitcoin. Bitcoin inspired cryptocurrencies are really in abundance but again the inspiration itself is the attestation of Bitcoin’s significance. Bitcoin is the pioneer of blockchain technology and it is very important to know we are at which stage of the technology adoption lifecycle for Bitcoin. The technology adoption lifecycle is a sociological model for describing the adoption of a new product or innovation, according to the demographic and psychological characteristics of defined adopter groups. The process of adoption follows a normal distribution curve. According to the model, the first group of people who experience the innovation cycle are the ‘innovators. Then comes the ‘early majority’. In the next phase, we see the ‘early majority’. The ‘late majority’ group appears after the ‘early majority’ and in the last phase, we see the ‘laggards’. ‘The chasm’ refers to the gap between the first two stages. Crossing ‘the chasm’ is very important in a technology lifecycle as it creates the community leaders and the stepping stone for the growth of the curve. The first stage for Bitcoin clicked really well as we saw many thought leaders who provided path-breaking and visionary ideas to cascade the adoption in the other stages. We can assume that we are in the stage of ‘the chasm’ now for the Bitcoin adoption lifecycle. The ‘early adopters’ stage is not reached yet. Once it reaches that stage, reaching the ‘early majority’ will be the next hurdle. Then comes mass adoption.
FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) regarding Bitcoin is considerably less now and Bitcoin was the best performing asset class of the last decade. The governments across the countries have taken neutral stands against Bitcoin whereas we used to get so-called speculative banning news earlier. Bitcoin is only a 12 years old asset. Although Bitcoin is often called ‘digital gold’, it is an extremely new asset class in comparison to the cult asset gold. Yes, it has succeeded in being recognized as a global store-of-value and an effective payment system. The future looks bright with more widespread adoption and various technologies built on top of the blockchain or involving the blockchain indirectly. The technology of Bitcoin is unstoppable and the adoption rate really has the potential to surpass the growth rate of the Internet. Bitcoin is winning everyone’s heart. Let’s cross ‘the chasm’ now.
Note: This post was first published here for Cryptowriter in association with voice.com.
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