Woven directly into Bitcoin’s core is a disruptive and innovative streak. It has always been an outlier in the world of both tech and economics, and that is unlikely ever to change. Its enigmatic presence caused us to question the nature of money, critique the traditional markets, and it ultimately gave birth to an entire industry. It is one of the trailblazing inventions of the last 20 years.
That being said, sometimes the speed at which the crypto and blockchain space evolves leads people to question whether Bitcoin is being left behind in the process. However, those who are focused on BTC and understand its significance know that this is far from the truth. Bitcoin is definitely still the leader of this sector, and while its innovations may not be as loud or dramatic as some of its forerunners, they are still just as meaningful (perhaps even more so). With that in mind, let’s take a look at what the future of Bitcoin could look like in the coming months and years.
Bitcoin's Historical Evolution
To understand where Bitcoin is heading, we need to first know where it came from. That way we can build a sensible trajectory– the future of Bitcoin will be invariably tied to its origins. BTC was born in 2008, and was released as a functioning cryptocurrency in 2009. This was during the Great Recession, which covered 2007 up to 2009. The reasons for this economic downturn are still being studied, but it is largely believed to be related to financial institutions and corporations acting in reckless and sometimes nefarious ways, mismanaging money and assets to such an extent that it caused a collapse.
It is important to remember this narrative as it was one of the dominant talking points across the globe during the recession itself. Public trust in these organizations dipped significantly, and it was during this level of distrust that Bitcoin found its footing. The project offered a refreshingly different option, providing people the ability to be custodians of their own wealth, instead of handing it over to third parties.
Bitcoin may not have been as successful if it was not for the fact that it launched during this deeply complicated time. Its ideas resonated with people largely because the current systems in power proved themselves to be tremendously fallible and had left people feeling vulnerable. For some, that feeling still persists, and for many who place their faith wholeheartedly in Bitcoin, they do so for these reasons.
However, Bitcoin’s meteoric rise is not only attached to its origins. There have been various other huge milestones in its existence that embody its legacy. It would take a herculean effort to list every one of these, but we can definitely pick out a handful of specific highlights.
February 9, 2011 – Bitcoin Reaches USD Parity: On this date, 1 BTC reached the price of 1 USD. While it is hard to imagine Bitcoin being so low in price, back in 2011, it was a momentous occasion, and helped to add legitimacy to the cryptocurrency.
July 30, 2015 – Ethereum was Launched: It may seem weird to list Ethereum’s launch as a milestone for Bitcoin, but its existence is extremely meaningful as it is a sign of how Bitcoin was able to give rise to an entire industry, with a range of different cryptocurrencies forming. Ethereum’s emergence is especially momentous as it is nowadays considered a major contender to Bitcoin, showing that an ideological decedent of BTC could also be seen in a serious light.
October 31, 2017 – Bitcoin Futures Get Listed on CME: The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced that Bitcoin futures would be listed on its network. Doing so was triggered due to “increasing client interest in the evolving cryptocurrency markets”. This is particularly meaningful because it showed both that the crypto market had been growing significantly, and that traditional traders were beginning to get curious– curious enough to take financial action.
June 1, 2021 – El Salvador Adopts Bitcoin as Legal Tender: In a monumental decision, El Salvador’s government decided to elevate Bitcoin to the status of legal tender. This was a defining moment, as it placed Bitcoin on the same pedestal as traditional money. It therefore entrenched it in the traditional financial world.
March 14, 2024 – Bitcoin reaches an all-time high of $73,737.94: In 2024, Bitcoin’s price ballooned to over $73,700.00. While the world had been very much used to Bitcoin’s rate increasing significantly, this was nevertheless a shock even to those who were heavily invested in the space.
Current Trends in the Bitcoin Market
Now that we have an idea of Bitcoin’s beginnings and its history, let’s examine its current-day themes and activity. 2024 has been an exciting time for investors. Not only has Bitcoin reached its all-time high $73,737.94, but it got US ETF approval in January. The ETF was something that many Bitcoin fans and even institutional players had been encouraging for a long time. The Winklevoss twins, co-founders of the Gemini exchange, were at the forefront of this for years, however, it was only by January that the SEC truly listened to the industry’s desires and fulfilled them.
This gives a light indication of where the SEC stands when it comes to Bitcoin. While it is always tough to get a read on this regulator, the fact that they signed off on an ETF suggests that they are easing their grip on the asset, which spells good news for the future of Bitcoin from a US legal perspective.
The ETF and the new all-time high were far from the only events in 2024 that are worth zeroing in on. Bitcoin underwent one of its famous halvings in April, which is where the amount of BTC awarded to miners is halved, as a means of slowing down the amount of Bitcoins getting released into circulation. Whenever these events happen (which is roughly every four years), people tend to speculate that Bitcoin’s price will increase, as it is a solid sign that there will be more scarcity in the market. In fact, it is very possible that this halving did contribute to the all-time high being reached just beforehand.
While halvings usually lead to increased rates after they happen, this time it occurred before. A major possibility is that people have started to learn Bitcoin’s trends and motions, and so they priced in the event prior to it happening.
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Predictions for Bitcoin's Future Value
Financial predictions are extremely hard to make when it comes to the future of Bitcoin, but there are some other factors we can assess it on. For instance, if its history tells us anything, then institutional adoption should continue to increase, with more corporations, regulators, and even governments viewing it in a favorable light. Bitcoin has proven itself over the years, and so it is getting looked at in a more serious way than it used to many years ago. El Salvador’s decision to elevate to legal tender, and the SEC’s decision to approve the Bitcoin ETF are the two best examples of this.
Naturally, when institutions take on Bitcoin, that will trickle down to the average consumer, giving rise to individual adoption as well. This is especially exciting as it normalizes Bitcoin, and makes it more acceptable between people, which is what Bitcoin has always been about. BTC was never designed for corporations, but rather as an antidote to corporate custodianship.
Related Content: Why Bitcoin could reach new highs of $85,000 by year-end
However, the future of Bitcoin from a developer perspective is not as clear or positive. For years, people entrenched in the crypto space have questioned whether Bitcoin can survive into the future, especially in the context of newer, faster, and more versatile blockchains that exist. For instance, some think Ethereum or Solana are more future-ready than Bitcoin.
This talking point turns up from time to time, and was especially big during the 2016 bull market, but at the moment nothing has rivaled Bitcoin on the financial markets. Its market cap is still untouchable, and even though Ethereum is often comfortably in second place, it has been a very long time since the markets have seen it have a real chance of dethroning BTC.
Speaking of finance, there is one concerning factor to keep in mind, and this not only relates to Bitcoin but perhaps the entire crypto space. The rise of AI has led many companies and retail investors to shift their focus away from the blockchain sector and toward this field instead. The two are by no means enemies (and there are many circumstances where their unique features complement each other), but they occupy the same pedestal of promising a new type of technological future.
Therefore, they aim at many of the same investors. If AI continues to increase in significance and is able to impress the world further (which is seeming like the case), then it could mean that more money gets poured into it rather than crypto. That could lead to lower returns from an investment angle. That being said, discussions like this are highly speculative, and so there is no solid basis for taking this as the truth.
Technological Innovations in Bitcoin and Blockchain
Bitcoin’s technological future is always fascinating to discuss, as there are often many opinions circulating about it. Oftentimes, people present Bitcoin as being technologically inferior to other blockchains, and suggest that very little work is being done on an architectural level. However, this time round, Bitcoin actually received a pretty significant update not very long ago.
In 2023, Bitcoin Ordinals were launched– these are essentially a type of NFT that can exists fully within the Bitcoin blockchain. Better yet, the material held within a Bitcoin Ordianal is fully inscribed into the blockchain itself, making them more future-proof and robust than Etheruem’s current NFTs. To put it into context, most of Ethereum’s NFTs are not exactly found on the blockchain, but rather a link to them is found there, with that link pointing to the data behind the asset. This is not always the case– but it often is.
While the idea of Bitcoin NFTs might not excite many people, as the NFT space has shrunk over the years, it is a clear indicator that Bitcoin developers are still innovating, and that they are still deeply invested in keeping up with the industry. It is important because no other cryptocurrency gets criticized for being stagnant quite like Bitcoin.
When it comes to the overall blockchain sector, future predictions get even harder to make. Although, there are some points to consider. For starters, the intermingling between blockchain and AI is likely to become huge in the coming months and years, in part because the rise of AI on a consumer level has reinforced an old use case for blockchain tech– user-owned data.
With the amount of personal information we feed into large language models like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, we openly give away extremely intimate details about ourselves to corporations without much ability to prevent it from being used as future training data. This has helped give room to several blockchain-based projects emerging which promise to give users more control over their data when engaging in AI solutions. Considering how distrust in corporations never really disappeared since 2007, expect topics like this to continue well into the next couple of years.
Economic and Social Implications of Bitcoin
Any discussions on the future of Bitcoin are implicitly discussions on society, as it encompasses both the lives of individuals and the nature of the financial markets. From an economic standpoint, we can expect to see Bitcoin’s acceptance by institutions to continue, indicating that big players in the financial world have adopted it, themselves.
This is often seen as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means there are more users and more money going into Bitcoin, which indicates higher rates. On the other hand, it shows that Bitcoin has essentially become institutionalized, and may no longer be the counter-cultural pressure-point to the economic landscape that it started out as.
Some of the older Bitcoin fans and investors chose to support it because it represented a vote against the status quo, and towards a future driven by people other than banks and corporations. To learn that those same entities are pouring their money into Bitcoin can make some people feel uncomfortable, as it sometimes gets interpreted as those organizations using it for their own gain, and therefore diminishing its meaning for the everyday user.
For some, they may consider it as Bitcoin essentially becoming domesticated, to the point where it no longer operates as an ideological opponent to the traditional markets, and has now been engulfed by them. There is definitely some reason to believe this is true, but to an extent, it is a matter of interpretation.
It is theoretically possible for Bitcoin to act as both a tool used by corporations, and still be a stain on the traditional economic landscape. Institutions might use it for their own gain, but that does not diminish Bitcoin’s significance. Before it, discussions on self-custody and money without a governmental mint were simply not happening. It was not in the public consciousness.
Bitcoin changed the way we view money, it caused us to question what exactly banks do for us, and gave us a pathway for looking after our own finances. Even if institutions use Bitcoin, the asset will always be a representation of the distrust we had in them in the first place.
What Lies Ahead for Bitcoin
With the Bitcoin ETF, its $73,000 all time-high, its recent halving, ordinals, and the intermingling of blockchain tech and AI, there is a lot to look forward to. Bitcoin and the crypto space seem to be in an extremely exciting position that could last well into the next few years. Of course, it is also good to act with some caution, as we never really know what will happen to the markets, and it is definitely possible that Bitcoin struggles to keep growing in recent times, although from this current position it seems somewhat unlikely.
The real question should then shift to what your personal future looks like in relation to Bitcoin. Assess the perspectives presented in this piece, and take a look at the landscape for yourself to see what you would like to do next. Does buying BTC (or buying more if you already own some) sound sensible to you? Or would you rather wait it out for a little and see what the next few months look like? Do you want to keep your Bitcoin on an exchange where it is ready to trade, or do you want to place it in a savings or growth account and build interest?
There are no wrong answers, as Bitcoin has always been somewhat unpredictable. Plus, in the spirit of autonomy, there is really no type of Bitcoin-related activity that should be shunned (unless it is illegal, of course). So long as you keep an open mind, but remember to act with caution, you can rarely go wrong in this sector.
Disclaimer
This article is sponsored by 21 Technologies Inc. and/or its subsidiaries (“Ledn”) and is for general information, discussion, or educational purposes only and is not to be construed or relied upon as constituting legal, financial, investment, accounting, tax, estate-planning, or other professional advice or recommendation. Please read Ledn’s full Risk Disclosure Statement and Disclaimers.
