As An Asset, Bitcoin Is As Good As Gold

No cryptocurrency has seen as much scrutiny as Bitcoin. Despite it being the number one cryptocurrency in both popularity and market capital, there are still some investors who simply do not trust it as a currency. Many companies, who used to support Bitcoin are dwindling, and it is beginning to look less and less like a viable currency everyday. One of these companies is Stripe.  Although they boasted about the fact that they were one of the first companies to accept and support Bitcoin payments, snags in the blockchain technology, such as lengthy transactions times and the volatile price, they have since stopped their support. They said; “Because of this, we’ve seen the desire from our customers to accept Bitcoin decrease. And of the businesses that are accepting Bitcoin on Stripe, we’ve seen their revenues from Bitcoin decline substantially. Empirically, there are fewer and fewer use cases for which accepting or paying with Bitcoin makes sense.” Steam, and industry leading digital distribution platform also dropped their support for Bitcoin back in December, for similar reason, with the main complaint being the high transaction fees. So why does Bitcoin have these payment problems? Many believe that the root of it is because the currency is reliant on its miners. They confirm any transactions, and are compensated with new Bitcoin; however the maximum number of Bitcoins that is allowed to exist is fast approaching, which means that the miners are having to be compensated with higher transaction fees. Something that will simply keep on rising. There is one way in which Bitcoin could gain respect as a serious company, and that is if the implementation of the Lightning Network takes off, which will make the transactions instant and cheap. As a store of value; however, Bitcoin is incredibly attractive, and has even been called ‘digital gold’. It is a great and interesting choice of investment for those who are looking to store and grow their wealth, so, just as gold exists as a valued investment, so will Bitcoin. Sponsored by