Is Bitcoin a popular payment method?
- almost 2 years ago
- 2 min read
We wonder: is Bitcoin a way to store value similar to how gold can be used? Or is it also becoming an acceptable payment method? Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, the currency has been in use since 2009, and has had a volatile trading history.
Paying with Bitcoin is not straightforward, one of the reasons is that the software design of the currency was not build to handle an unlimited number of transactions, thus creating a bottleneck when transactions are increasing. Another reason is the high volatility of the value of Bitcoin, which is a problem as most regular shops will need to exchange it for other currencies such as the US Dollar or the Euro at some point. And, of course, privacy is a concern since everything is open and transparent, which means your wallet is exposed and every transaction is publicly visible.
Last year, the value of the digital currency climbed steeply, but over the last few weeks Bitcoin has taken a beating. Can we see a relationship between the Bitcoin value and the number of online stores that accept Bitcoin as payment? We’ve been tracking the acceptance of Bitcoin on websites for a while now and we do see growth albeit with some monthly fluctuations. When we compare this pattern to the average monthly value of Bitcoin we see a strong positive correlations.
This means that if we see an increase in the value of the Bitcoin over the coming months and years we are also likely to see more websites accepting it as payment. However, this also suggest that if the value decreases, the number of sites accepting it as payment will likely also go down.
