Bitcoin's market value has exceeded $12 billion, surpassing many countries' fiat currencies

Earlier this year, several mainstream media outlets downplayed Bitcoin’s potential to revolutionize the world’s financial and banking systems, despite the fact that Bitcoin’s market capitalization has surpassed the fiat currencies of many countries.

Recently, Vox Media published a report on Bitcoin. The author, Timothy Lee, said that Bitcoin is still far from mainstream technology.

Venture capitalists have poured billions of dollars into bitcoin startups, but bitcoin’s distance from mainstream technology doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. To a large extent, bitcoin’s application areas have not changed to this day. As in 2012 and 2014, bitcoin is still active in illegal transactions and financial speculation.

Nathaniel Popper, a reporter for The New York Times, also supports Lee's view:

I think Bitcoin has stagnated.

Bitcoin vs. Bank Blockchain

However, Lee's point in the article is clearly an attempt to cover up the truth. Because the Bitcoin he analyzed is actually an enterprise-level use case of blockchain developed by banks. In the financial market, similar systems have not yet launched any commercial use cases. Lee also criticized the use of Bitcoin in illegal activities, which is extremely unreasonable. Because cash is the more popular way of storing value for criminal activities and illegal transactions.

Most experts believe that Bitcoin technology is still in its early stages of development. From the perspective of expansion and popularization, Bitcoin has a long way to go. However, even in its early stages of development, Bitcoin's market value remains stable at 121.8亿美元, far outperforming many legal currencies.

Can you find out how many countries have a total legal currency value lower than Bitcoin?

Currently, the market value of Bitcoin is far higher than the legal currency of most countries in Africa, the Middle East and South America.

More importantly, Bitcoin’s price action has proven to be less volatile than some major reserve currencies, such as the British pound.

Daily transactions

Some people believe that it is not practical to use Bitcoin for daily transactions because transaction processing efficiency is low and the fees are high.

Some Bitcoin experts agree with this view. The former product director of Blockchain once said:

Having Bitcoin does not mean that you can buy a latte with your mobile phone, but that you can complete transactions that others think are impossible.

However, with the deployment of expansion plans and the development of technologies such as the Lightning Network, the Bitcoin system will soon be able to process micropayments quickly and at very low fees. Even if the fee per transaction is $0.15, Bitcoin is still a cheaper and more efficient settlement option compared to credit card networks such as Visa, which charge a fee of 3% to 4% of the total amount per transaction.