The cryptocurrency universe and bitcoin is still in its formative stages. With that youth come an array of issues of bitcoin and other cryptos to overcome. Those issues include the need for wider adoption, use of digital currencies as stores of value and acceptance as credible forms of payment.
Bitcoin has been in a tailspin since early May and some traders believe the digital currency needs to make significant gains before market participants turn bullish. By some estimates, bitcoin would need to jump 30% to legitimize any rallies from current levels. A move of 20% typically confirms a new bull market.
“Many of the most basic claims made by proponents of cryptocurrencies simply are not true. We are told that cryptocurrencies speed transfers up, that they help to eliminate middlemen and that they are free of cost, but none of this is true,” according to research firm Global Data.
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Cryptocurrencies Waiting On Acceptance
One of the biggest problems facing the cryptocurrency space is that, even with bitcoin’s prominence, no digital currencies can be deemed “widely accepted.”
“The number of retailers and businesses that accept cryptocurrencies as payment for goods and services is vanishingly small, and those that do typically report very low volumes of cryptocurrency transactions by comparison to other means of payment,” according to Global Data.
Recent data indicate bitcoin ownership is increasingly evenly split among short-term speculators and market participants willing to hold the largest digital currency for long periods of time.
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Investors’ reluctance to embrace bitcoin as a long-term investment is tied to, among issues, concerns that prices are manipulated, security on cryptocurrency exchanges, lack of liquidity and high transaction costs.
“Cryptocurrencies cannot scale. The Visa payment network is capable of supporting 24,000 transactions per second (tps) at peak rates and regularly averages in the region of 1,500 tps. Bitcoin, meanwhile, struggles to achieve a transaction rate over 10 tps, while bitcoin cash can handle around 60 tps. The only cryptocurrency which comes close to Visa’s average is Ripple, which is capable of 1,500 tps,” said Global Data.
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