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Bitcoin Shoots to the Moon: The Story of BTC Leading the Global Market

In 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto launched the first digital currency in the world. Bitcoin was designed to create a decentralized peer to peer payment option fostering inclusivity in transactions. 

Some people believe that Satoshi Nakamoto is a group. However, almost every bitcoin lover agrees that Satoshi is a genius, whether it’s an individual or a group. January 2009 marked the completion of the first-ever bitcoin transaction with the sender being Satoshi Nakamoto and the recipient being Hal Finney. Satoshi mined the first bitcoin blocks, which came with a 50 bitcoin reward. 

At this time, the coin’s unit price was close to nothing, with 1 dollar being equal to 1300 BTC. Some may wonder, how did an invaluable asset like bitcoin grow into becoming a 350 billion dollars worth platform with one coin costing 19 thousand times more than a US dollar?

This extract will discuss some significant events in BTC’s history all the way from it being an attractive investment to an asset ranked number 11 in technology, even paralleling gold as an investment prospect. Keep reading to find out.

Why the Launch of the First Bitcoin Exchange was Important

On March 17th, 2010, Bitcoinmarket.com, the first bitcoin exchange platform, was launched. This currently defunct platform aimed to create a network where bitcoins were treated as commodities, thus quickly exchanged between different people. 

Before bitcoinmarket.com’s launch, there were complicated ways of getting bitcoins; either through mining or trading on the IRC platform. However, with the introduction of bitcoinmarket.com, it became easy to get, purchase, or sell bitcoin. As time went by, more exchanges launched. 

This crypto exchange used Paypal as its leading fiat agent, making it easy to exchange BTC for fiat. A few months later, in January 2011, bitcoinmarket.com removed PayPal as part of the bitcoinmarket.com partner. However, PayPal’s role in the growth of BTC is one that we should not assume.

It boosted the liquidity of the coin and led to BTC increasing demand and increasing values. When launching Bitcoinmarket.com, 1 BTC was worth less than a dollar by a considerable margin; in fact, 333 BTC was equal to 1 US dollar. 

However, after the launch, bitcoin began to note serious growth in its unit price. For instance, at the start of February, one bitcoin was equal to one USD. This currency’s utility increased with more transactions and commodities being bought and paid for using BTC in the same year. At this point, some investors started noticing the investment prospects of bitcoin and foresaw a bright future. 

Launch of BitPay

In 2011, BitPay, the very first crypto smartphone wallet, was launched. This platform quickly gained attention, getting around 1100 merchants by the end of 2012. During this period, the coin had grown in value to 31 dollars in mid-2011. It, however, plunged to 10 dollars after a few days. 

This introduction brought bitcoin services right into a mobile wallet, enabling most people with mobile phones access to bitcoin. Moreover, Bitpay introduced partnerships with Newegg, WordPress, College football Bowl to widen bitcoin’s reach and adoption. Bitpay is currently a top bitcoin wallet with over 60k users globally. 

The Bitcoin Price Surge in 2013

The first sight of bitcoin’s price surge happened in late 2013 when the coin rose from around 20 US dollars in early 2013 to 1,100 USD in November. What led to this surge? In November 2012, bitcoin did their first halving event. Bitcoin halving is the process that occurs every four years, where the platform halves the miners’ rewards. Analysts suggest that the halving event has some economic impact on BTC, and 2013 was proof for that. 

By the end of 2013, the small industry had grown into a 13 billion dollar industry. However, after this price hike, there was some period of plunges returning BTC to the below 1K mark. 

Bitcoin Institutional Use

In 2014, bitcoin grew in terms of utility and institutional use. Various giant institutions started accepting bitcoin as a mode of payment. Here are three of the institutions;

  • On February 1st, 2014, the Chicago Sun-Times, an American newspaper, started accepting BTC for payments.
  • In July the same year, two companies, Newegg, a company selling computer and laptop parts, started accepting bitcoin for payment. The same month, Dell, computer giants, also allowed users to pay using BTC.
  • In December of the same year, Microsoft introduced bitcoin payment options for users who want to buy Xbox games and the Windows software.

Shooting to the Moon

At the start of 2015, the BTC price was at 262 USD. In August 2015, over 160 thousand merchants had accepted bitcoin as a payment form, and the Barclays bank announced their acceptance of bitcoin. 

In 2017, bitcoin hit the 1000 mark for a second time showing signs of growth. Over the year 2017, this coin continued to surge, hitting 3k, 5k, and finally 10k when 2017 was nearing its end. In that same period, bitcoin hit its highest value of about 20 thousand USD. 

What contributed to the price surges of BTC at this point? The prices surged because of the second halving that happened in 2016 July. The aftermath of this event was bitcoins’ growth to a price of near 20 thousand dollars.  

In 2020, the fourth bitcoin halving and signs are already there of a possible surge in values. Experts predict that the coin will hit a value of over 50 thousand USD in the next few months. 

This asset is currently among the top investment options of today, and it’s soon going to be even better than gold. Some key takeaways on why the price of this coin is growing to include; 

  • Liquidity – The introduction of bitcoin exchanges and other crypto wallets and exchanges continuously increase bitcoin liquidity
  • Volatility – The volatile nature of bitcoin is one of the things that makes risk ready investors like the investment option. From time to time, investors receive supernormal profits by investing in this asset. 
  • Scarcity – The asset has a maximum limit of 21 million coins that should all be in circulation after mining  

Conclusion

Since bitcoin’s launch, this asset has been climbing the ranks technologically and as an investment option. It was recently ranked number 11 among the best performing crypto projects. However, it’s quite clear that this asset remains the best crypto asset to invest in the crypto space.

Various things have contributed to the growth of this platform, and the first was the introduction of bitcoinmarket.com. The market platform increased bitcoins utility and liquidity. Later, the first wallet Bitpay joined the crypto space increasing bitcoin’s user adoption. 

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Although many other assets have entered the crypto world, mostly since 2015, bitcoin remains the best asset for investment with more exchanges and better wallets. The story of bitcoin’s rise to glory proves many good future benefits for all bitcoin lovers. 

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