Regardless of its volatility, and the criticism from prominent regulators, Bitcoin has garnered attention from the likes of Elon Musk and other mainstream influencers in the past few weeks.
In the words of Marshall Hayner, CEO of Metal Pay, Bitcoin is on its “fourth wave” of adoption. The chief exec believed that the asset reached all-time highs over the past few months, and with it came institutions that added the crypto to their balance sheet. Moreover, Hayner claimed that Bitcoin’s popularity is driving corporations to see the asset as a hedge against inflation of the dollar and euro.
Meanwhile, Visa CEO Al Kelly pointed out the asset’s store-of-value potential by calling BTC “digital gold.” Kelly made the reference while announcing Visa’s crypto roadmap.
Such moves from notable financial entities could only mean that Bitcoin is indeed heading toward mainstream adoption. Recently, crypto influencer and analyst Willy Woo predicted that a billion users could adopt Bitcoin in the next few years. Woo pointed out that Bitcoin now has about the same number of users as the Internet had back in 1997. However, Bitcoin seems to be growing faster:
“Next 4 years on [the] current path will bring Bitcoin users to 1b people; that’s the equivalent of 2005 for the Internet.”
Source: Twitter/Willy Woo
Across regions, Chainalysis’ Global Crypto Adoption 2020 Index ranked Ukraine, Russia and Venezuela as first, second and third major adopters of BTC, respectively. This was followed by China in fourth place while US ranked sixth.
Woo’s prediction may or may not come true, but what remains certain is the current surge in demand for BTC and other crypto assets from not just institutions but retail investors as well. In fact, exchanges Binance, Bitrue, Coinbase and Kraken recently faced technical difficulties in managing the sudden trading activity from an influx of new users on their websites.
At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $37,049, and had spiked by 1.2% in the past hour.
