Wildly successful in early development, bitcoin has hit some rough patches in China and Europe, and a cold shoulder in the North American banking world. However, mainstream acceptance is plowing forward albeit at single-digit annual growth rates.
The global bitcoin technology market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 7.26% through 2020. The recovering economy and growing disposable income among middle income group in the developed world has led Bitcoin technologies to gain traction and to be used as one of the medium of exchange in the region.
However, the recent regulations and directives imposed by the European banking authorities has hugely impacted the Bitcoin market in Europe. Whereas, owing to large number of bitcoin users, the market will witness growth in the North America region.
Global Bitcoin technology market have been broadly segmented on the basis of denominations used, services offered, industry verticals and geography.
As per denominations, the market have been segregated into bitcoin (BTC), millibitcoin (mBTC), microbitcoin (uBTC) and satoshi. Whereas per services it has been segmented by bitcoin exchanges, remittance services, and payment & wallet services. Various industry verticals, where bitcoin are being used are mining, banking and financial services, entertainment and media.
Background: Over the last decade, the world of digital currencies underwent the major transformation with the introduction of Bitcoins in the market. Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency, purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash used for online transactions through digital unit of exchange, where a user can make transaction without any middlemen.
Transactions made are processed through private network of computers, linked through shared program and simultaneously it gets verified and recorded in public distributed ledger, called the book chain. Bitcoin is the most prominent triple entry bookkeeping system in existence. Some of the key benefits of using bitcoin are: there are no intermediaries or third party involved in, to interrupt, lesser transaction fees, multimode payments methods, daily cash outs and others.
Bitcoin, has paved the way for increased mainstream acceptance for the digital currency, which even has the potential for transforming global financial transactions. In current scenario, most of the online merchants and startup companies have already started enjoying the anonymity and efficiency of bitcoin payments, which allows them to cut overhead costs compared to credit or debit cards transactions.
