Jordan Hiscott, Chief Trader At Ayondo Markets - “Bitcoin Has An Identity Crisis And Needs To Decide What Its Key Aspect Is For It To Be Truly Successful”

“Bitcoin is the largest and most well-known digital form of money, and the ideals of cryptography secured paperless transactions will be the future of monetary payments as we know it. The virtues of Bitcoin are clear, involving Blockchain, a publicly recordable technology, and insanely difficult and laborious mining aspects. However, I feel at present that Bitcoin in itself has an identity crisis. Is it these virtues or is it a hyper-turbocharged speculation tool, used by an ever-expanding trading community that has little use or care for Bitcoin as a monetary transaction, and instead is just chasing large exponential performance gains?

“I would argue it certainly can’t be both, and clearly the latter is contradictory to the original idea of Bitcoin. This comes in the form of opportunity cost. While back in 2012 Bitcoin was trading below $100, the price has risen hugely. Had you then used your Bitcoin to purchase something, such as a coffee, the ‘cost’ of that coffee would now likely form the deposit of a suitably nice flat in London. This is what I class as opportunity cost, and only when it decides if the key aspect for Bitcoin, or use to Bitcoin, is for genuine monetary transactions will it be truly successful.”