The Two Potential Paths for Bitcoin

Today I want to talk about what I believe the two future paths of bitcoin to be. In the past I might have said there were three paths, the third being failure, but today I dont think that is a very likely option. The two major paths that bitcoin could end up taking would ultimately be mainstream success and use or second, a niche underground use and community, both of which are still successful in my eyes. Each could still make the price of a coin more than it is today, but they would have very different implications and ways that coins would be used.

The first path bitcoin could possibly take is mainstream success, which I think many people hope is the outcome. It would mean that bitcoin would be considered a mainstream asset class, governments, businesses, big net worth individuals and others would use it. We would be looking at massive coin valuations, multiple use cases that many use on a daily basis and everyone knowing what it is. For me, this was always the path I wanted bitcoin to take, or else I saw it as failure, but I don't see it that way today. Seeing major institutions get involved at this point has been a boost for both my morale and wallet, but I also have realized it might not completely matter if they are involved at this point.

The second path is going to be the niche underground community path, which is more akin to what bitcoin was for a long time and still is for some other currencies. The market could still get bigger because underground niche communities could still be relatively large (think linux), but it wouldn't include the financial backing from the mainstream institutions that would support it in the primary path. Many of the cypherpunks and developers would continue to use and update the software and it would be an underground movement. That isn't to say that there could be a movement underground and then a resurgence again, that is also a possibility.

The real way we are going to figure out which path bitcoin ends up taking, will ultimately come down to government and institutional support. It is very hard or near impossible for governments to destroy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but they can do the next best thing, which is kill investment into them. By attacking exchanges, the choke point of crypto at the moment, making the ownership of bitcoin illegal in a country like the United States and basically forbidding the trading of it. This wouldnt kill bitcoin, but it would make massive sums of investment, unreachable.

The governments will start to really be tested when more institutions start playing around with bitcoin because it does represent a threat to monetary policy that is seen as mainstream today. With the ability bitcoin has to affect certain economies, it can be seen in a very dangerous light. Governments might decide that the net benefit is negative and start a campaign against it. These are still very possible scenarios at this point in time. Despite this price going to huge levels, in many ways bitcoin is still an experiment. I for one am interested to see what path is chosen.

-Calaber24p