Crypto enthusiasts have probably been anticipating Bitcoin’s global interest and eventual adoption for some time now, and 2017 seems to be the year for that to happen. January saw the currency trading at $1k, while the last two weeks saw it jump from $10k to $14k to $18k. Some exchanges even reported Bitcoin’s price breaking through the $20k barrier. Its market cap of over $300 billion last week even surpassed that of Visa.
There are a few reasons for these phenomenal increases, one of them being an increase of buyers desperate to purchase their own Bitcoin in the hope that the currency will grow even more in the future. However, these price surges have paved the way for more bubble talk, and not just from cynics either. Even though the currency has been presumed to be the preferred medium of exchange on the black market in the past, its current adoption is much more legitimate.
Support for the currency, in the form of integration in the mainstream financial industry, is becoming more common, with CBOE obtaining the bragging rights for launching the first Bitcoin futures contracts. CME is running a close second, and Nasdaq will be releasing theirs next year.
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Bitcoin is nearing the mainstream adoption though there are certainly big issues that it still has to face squarely and honestly dealt with. The problem is not very much technical as it is more of a political in nature...meaning people who should be deciding on these problems could not unite themselves with acceptable solutions for the advancement of Bitcoin. In other words, we are seeing here a big manifestation of the weaknesses of the human nature something which Satoshi Nakamoto could not do anything about.