Although many cryptocurrencies have their highs and lows, few have gotten as much attention as Bitcoin. This is in no small part because Bitcoin was the cryptocurrency that began the current trend of digital currencies and therefore it’s something of a benchmark for the entire industry.
It wasn’t until 2016 that there was greater interest in Ethereum and then in 2017, altcoins were just beginning to be taken seriously. This was at the point when the dominant share of Bitcoin experienced a sharp from 90% to 40%. In other words, when Bitcoin was the only cryptocurrency available, that’s what people chose, and now that there are a number of other options, the volatility of Bitcoin is driving some investors away.
One reason for the concern about Bitcoin’s overall future is the issue of the Bitcoin pool. This pool does have an endpoint, and whether or not this is a good point is now up for debate. There is no central bank regulation of Bitcoin as it’s a decentralized system, but there have been claims that more than 80% of the total number of Bitcoins have already been mined. And when there are no more Bitcoins to be mined, its value would naturally fall steeply. To deal with this potential problem, the concept of money supply regulation has been proposed more than once as the difficulty of mining Bitcoins increases and there are fewer coins entering the ecosystem.
Granted, there are several different factors which motivate miners, such as the transaction costs which are attached to the transactions confirmed in their block while mining. If the system keeps pace with the community, then these transaction fees should increase in value to make mining profitable even if there aren’t any more Bitcoins to be mined.
Additionally, Bitcoin has to weigh whether being too slow for some merchants to use the cryptocurrency for payments is worth correcting, or if they would prefer it be an asset instead of a means of exchange.
With so many other cryptocurrencies fighting to prove their value, Bitcoin’s developers should have sufficient motivation to better define what its function will be in the crypto ecosystem, and if properly implemented, can help it maintain a strategic position for years to come.
