Since its introduction in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, BTC has changed the financial landscape and the Bitcoin adoption has been steadily increasing. Ever since its all-time high in 2010, the digital alternative to traditional fiat currency is on everyone’s lips. Although, as a new currency, there naturally still are many sceptics, the numbers of its supporters grows steadily.

Since January 3, Bitcoin (BTC) is officially 10 years old. So it’s about time to review the Bitcoin adoption from the launch of the first digital currency to today.

Bitcoin development since 2008

It all started in November 2008 with the release of the famous whitepaper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. The work described a completely new form of currency: Bitcoin, which was supposed to fundamentally revolutionize the technological and financial landscape, was born.

The timing could not have been more perfect, because during of the financial crisis many had lost confidence in traditional currencies. The cryptocurrency, which was supposed to be the answer to the lack of transparency and the strong control of the financial institutions, appeared at the perfect time. And the hope that the Bitcoin adoption will ensure a societal change for the common good is still in the air today.

During its first 10 years, the alternative currency has seen a lot, from major price corrections, numerous criticisms and FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), to the volatility that characterizes its price until today.

Here are the biggest Bitcoin crashes at a glance:

Despite all this, Bitcoin has proven to be incredibly resilient and stood its ground even during the longest bear market in history.

Although there are now many alternatives to the classic cryptocurrency and a possible flippening (especially with Ethereum dethroning it) is mentioned more and more often, it is still the indisputable favourite among all cryptocurrencies. Since the launch of the currency, the Bitcoin adoption has therefore greatly increased.

A detailed breakdown of Bitcoin’s performance over the past 10 years can be found here.

And for those who are only looking for a short overview of the Bitcoin price development: Here the BTC chart from 2008 to 2018.

Bitcoin adoption today

For the public, Bitcoin is still considered the ultimate synonym for “cryptocurrency”. Among investors, with a market capitalization of just under 54% or $ 60,237,771,881 [as of 01/02/2019] according to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is by far the most popular crypto-asset as well.

This is hardly surprising because during the 10 years since its launch, the cryptocurrency has been steadily improved. Apart from numerous technical updates, its accessibility and scalability have been regularly updated as well. In addition, the BTC transaction costs are lower than ever today.

In August 2018, Yassine Elmandjra, cryptoanalyst at ARKInvest, tweeted that the daily Bitcoin transactions that year were valued at approximately $ 3-4 billion. When you extrapolate this number for the whole year, you get an overall transaction volume for 2018 of $ 1.3 trillion, which means BTC has already outperformed PayPal. With a sum this large, even surpassing VISA transactions is within reach.

On top of that, after a comprehensive study in the same month, Coinbase reported a steady increase in university courses discussing Bitcoin and co. The following insights could be derived from it:

42% of the top 50 global universities now offer courses on cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

The students interested in the subject are from many disciplines.

Has the vision become reality?

Whether and when a cryptocurrency will fundamentally revolutionize the way the general public uses money, is still unclear. Since Bitcoin hasn’t even reached puberty yet, we might still see some childhood diseases.

As you can see, it may well be that it will take another 10 years to find out if the Bitcoin adoption is really capable of becoming mainstream. Of course, until then it can’t be ruled out that another cryptocurrency will eventually dethrone the giant one day.

In any case, what can’t be taken from it is the fact that it will forever remain the world’s first cryptocurrency.