1. Introduction

Bitcoin is a digital currency that allows you to perform instant transactions at any time from anywhere in the world. It is the first decentralized cryptocurrency, as the system works without a central bank or single administrator. Bitcoin was invented by an unknown person or group of people under the name Satoshi Nakamoto and released as open-source software in 2009. The technology that this cryptocurrency is built on is a blockchain, which is a public ledger that contains all transactions that have taken place in the past. Bitcoin is widely accepted to be the first use of blockchain technology, and there are now over 4,000 different types of cryptocurrencies in existence. A key aspect of Bitcoin is that it is independent, meaning that it is not controlled and subject to country borders in the way normal currencies are. This opens up possibilities in places with unstable or no banking systems and can greatly benefit international acceptance and influence. Another interesting aspect specific to Bitcoin is its finite supply; there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin, which adds to the speculation that this cryptocurrency is a store of value. The concept of Bitcoin was first laid out in a white paper published on October 31, 2008. In that paper, Nakamoto outlined how the system would work. Just a few months later, on January 3, 2009, the Bitcoin network was created when Nakamoto mined the first block of the chain, known as the genesis block. Embedded in that block is a text that reads, “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor is on the brink of a second bailout for banks.” This may be seen as a lack of confidence in the financial system and a key factor that led to the creation and importance of Bitcoin today. Once the network was live and the mining of coins began, Bitcoin for the first couple of years was somewhat of an unheard and trivial matter. Prices of items were negotiated in forums, and the first real-world transaction of bitcoin was on May 22, 2010, when someone bought a pizza for 10,000 BTC. It wasn’t until February 2011 when Bitcoin crossed parity with the US dollar, cementing a spot for it in the world of finance. Now, BTC-to-USD is a common way of pricing Bitcoin. This was a key time period that began the era of Bitcoin trading and added to its worth as a store of value. From then on, there are many events that follow and lead to Bitcoin as it is today, all of which may be found in the history of Bitcoin.

1.1. What is Bitcoin?

Up until a consumer has acquired some form of bitcoin, it will be stored in an account called a “wallet.”. This wallet can be kept in the cloud or on one’s personal computer, and the bitcoins stored are uniquely identified by the owner. Next, consumers can now send or receive bitcoins from another bitcoin user using the encrypted and secure system. This method of transaction is also called “peer-to-peer.”. Last but not least, an innovative feature of Bitcoin lies in its method of sending bitcoins globally at any time without limit and with lower fees than most alternative online payment systems. This is because a bitcoin transaction will use the built-in system called “blockchain.”. A “block” is a permanent timestamped batch of transactions, while a “hash” is a function that converts an input into a fixed-size string of characters. This large chain of blocks is an open record of all bitcoin transactions in chronological order and is accessed by all users for the purpose of verifying the integrity of a purchase. This prevents double spending since no one would accept a purchase without the verification of a transaction.

Another way of acquiring bitcoins is to purchase them using a legitimate national currency through online bitcoin exchanges. Results from market research show that there are also cases where consumers purchase bitcoins as a form of investment and have an expectation of a profit. This can be proven when checking the bitcoin to USD forex, which gives information on the exchange rate between bitcoin and a real currency.

In addition, people started creating “mining pools” for shared effort in mining new coins, wherein participants would share their profits. Each time a participant replaces a block in the blockchain, they get paid in fresh bitcoins by the network. This method informs us that Bitcoin is a form of currency and a method of payment. In addition, it is categorized as the first decentralized digital currency. Although it is a digital currency, consumers can use it as a form of payment to purchase goods or services, and many online retailers accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. An example of this scenario is provided when asking Mr. John Kim, a lawyer in Malaysia. He had recently purchased a high-performance gaming laptop from Dell and said, “I paid using bitcoin, the Dell service was from an agent of Dell in Malaysia, and it was an excellent experience.”

1.2. History of Bitcoin

Bitcoin was developed by a programmer or a group of programmers using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. It was released in the form of open-source software in early 2009. The first recorded value of bitcoin was established in October 2009, when $1 was equivalent to 1309 bitcoins. This was calculated by looking at the cost of electricity required to mine the coins. The first real-world transaction occurred in 2010 when a Bitcoin miner bought 2 pizzas from Papa John’s for 10,000 bitcoins. At this point, there still wasn’t much value to the bitcoin; the value of the coins was calculated by the power used to mine them. The value of a bitcoin was finally agreed upon in 2011, with the rate of 1 USD = 1 BTC. In the early years, Bitcoin was often associated with illegal activities due to the fact that no government controlled it. Silk Road was an online black market platform that, in 2013, was shut down by the FBI. The official then seized the bitcoins from the site and auctioned them off in the following years. This instability caused a crash in the value of Bitcoin, where it dropped to just $300 per BTC from a previous all-time high of $1300 in 2013. However, the most controversial time in Bitcoin’s history was the collapse of Mt. Gox in late 2013–early 2014. Mt. Gox was one of the first online exchanges that allowed users to convert Bitcoin into other fiat currencies. This year-long collapse broke the internal exchange rate of bitcoin to $1000, half of the external exchange rate cost. A leaked report later revealed that Mt. Gox had lost over 800,000 bitcoins to theft, which totaled $450 million in USD. As of today, Mt. Gox has declared bankruptcy, and 6 executives have been arrested in Japan. The CEO, Mark Karpelès, has also been charged with embezzlement and data manipulation.

1.3. Importance of Bitcoin in the Financial World

Bitcoin transactions have been hailed as problematic and dangerous. The world no longer requires approval to transact with someone in another country. The connectivity of the internet and ease of transferring Bitcoins from one account to another, no matter the location, have resulted in an effort to push for the globalization of currency. A huge advantage of Bitcoin is the level of protection it offers. In some cases, it is more secure than any current banking system. When making a Bitcoin transaction, no sensitive information is required. This means no personal details can be used for identity theft. For physical transactions, there is an option to use what is called a “deterministic wallet.”. This wallet can be used to create public and private keys for an account. This adds a great level of protection. Credit card holders, and in particular, banks, are subjected to the cost of the stolen or misused information. Bitcoin can eliminate that factor. The cost of claiming back funds as a result of a fraudulent credit card transaction can be detrimental to the bank and account holder. Due to the currency being digital, the decision-making process on when and where to use Bitcoin can be rather complex. Without delving into a microeconomics lesson, the ideal scenario would be that the price of Bitcoin is stable when it comes to making decisions to spend. This is where the globalization and free market aspects of Bitcoin come into play. With no fixed rate and a supply-and-demand aspect coming into effect, Bitcoin’s value can fluctuate. Although the objective of any seller is to sell high, holding onto Bitcoin may result in a potential sale that is more profitable due to the deflation of its value. At the same time, the decision to buy Bitcoin in hopes it will be worth more in the future is considered an investment. All of these decisions are made with some thought to the movement of the forex market between the two currencies. The forex market can be quite a complex issue that better suits a separate discussion.

2. Recent Developments in Bitcoin

The next major change in Bitcoin is the adoption of it by major companies as a method of payment for goods and services. As Bitcoin has grown in popularity, it has caught the attention of companies that see the potential in it and the target market it reaches. One of the first major companies to adopt the cryptocurrency was Microsoft, which began accepting Bitcoin for Xbox games and other Windows content. It has since expanded its Bitcoin acceptance to include items in the Windows and Xbox stores. This was a major boon to Bitcoin and its reputation, considering Microsoft’s high standing in the business world and with consumers. In addition to major companies, there are a countless number of smaller companies and businesses that accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. This has continued to increase its legitimacy and has made it a true global currency.

The first of these changes is the change in the price of Bitcoin itself, as this has had the most publicity throughout the general public. Since it was first introduced, Bitcoin has been known to have extreme price swings. This was prominently shown in 2017, when Bitcoin went from $985 on January 1st to roughly $19,000 on December 15th. This is an increase of nearly 2000% in one year. The price then crashed down to about $7,000 at the beginning of 2018. Each of these price fluctuations changed the number of people purchasing Bitcoin, meaning that this buying and selling pressure contributed greatly to the price swings. While it is arguable that this price volatility is bad for Bitcoin in terms of being a stable currency, there is evidence and arguments that suggest it is good for the long-term health of the system. One of the issues with the gold standard, for example, is that its value never changes, so there is no reason to obtain gold other than now. Step back in time, and there is no incentive to acquire it. With Bitcoin constantly changing in value, people are more likely to save it and use it for investment as opposed to just spending it.

Now that we have reviewed the foundations of Bitcoin, we can dive into the changes and developments of the technology itself throughout the years. As with any technology, Bitcoin has evolved over time. However, some of these changes have been monumental and should not go unnoticed.

2.1. Bitcoin Price Volatility

The price of Bitcoin is an important aspect of the cryptocurrency’s usefulness as a store of value. It has been designed to avoid being inflated. It can only be produced for up to 21 million. Based on the economic principle, Bitcoin would become deflationary. When the price of goods falls, people will tend to hold their coins, which cannot be used for the long term. This will make the price of goods drop more until an unstable deflation spiral occurs. Then the goods will no longer be available on the market. Finally, there will be no goods at all in the market, which lowers people’s prosperity. Bitcoin’s price has been very volatile since its existence, and the volatility has been decreasing as the liquidity of the currency improves. Volatility is a measure of how much the price of a financial asset varies over time. For Bitcoin, its equivalent in dollars can swing very significantly from day to day and from month to month. The high volatility of the Bitcoin price prevents it from being taken seriously as a medium of exchange or store of value. This is because people who use Bitcoin for transactions or store their wealth in Bitcoin do not want to see the value of what they have been saving drop significantly in just a night. They would prefer their currency or their wealth to be stable in value. High Bitcoin price volatility has driven away some businesses, so it’s important for Bitcoin to keep its volatility low to increase adoption.

2.2. Adoption of Bitcoin by Major Companies

PayPal’s analytics into Bitcoin included speculation and confidence in the innovation. They found that growth in companies that accepted Bitcoin was around 11% on average, while Bitcoin users also increased on average by 152%. The moves by large companies such as PayPal and Dell show that they are starting to take Bitcoin seriously, both from a competitive point of view and as an innovation in technology. Smaller businesses in a wide range of industries are starting to see the importance of Bitcoin. Businesses like natural soap provider Oasis Sap and online retailer Bonsai Paris have taken the leap and begun accepting Bitcoin as payment. This trend will likely continue and expand into the future. When speaking with newsBTC, Peter Dushenski, owner of online hardware retailer Brass Goggles, said, “It’s not so much that I believe the Bitcoins I receive today will appreciate in value tomorrow, bringing me a windfall of profit. Rather, I see accepting Bitcoins as an investment in the future of online commerce that will attract new customers and create loyalty by standing out from the crowd.” This mindset is likely to become more common and validate a lot of Bitcoin’s support from business owners.

2.3. Regulatory Changes Impacting Bitcoin

First, a Bit of History When Bitcoin was created in 2009, it was given a peer-to-peer status, which allowed it to be regulated by the people using the currency rather than by any external regulatory authority. Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, stated upon this that “the root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve.” With Satoshi Nakamoto wanting to rid the system of trust and create a stable and independent currency, it is clear why the idea of regulation would be somewhat unappealing. However, there are still laws that govern Bitcoin and control its use in certain regions of the world. An example of this would be when the Thai central bank declared in July 2013 that using any virtual currency in Thailand was illegal. This caused the closure of the Bitcoin website within Thailand and led to the entire market price of Bitcoins to drop by 10% within 24 hours. This is a prime example of legal restrictions being a cause of price change and market volatility.

2.4. Innovations in Bitcoin Technology

Superior to the speculation market in terms of leverage and funding is the creation of a decentralized marketplace and financial derivatives exchange. The goal is to outmode the NYSE. The financial exchange is similar to the prediction market trading on an asset, but with a default and leverage. This can enable more aggressive forex trading and speculation about a currency’s inflation or deflation. With the default and maturity of loan contracts on an asset, we can coherently simulate debt markets, both foreign and domestic. The automated clearing and settlement with a deposit is far superior to the current OTC derivative trading. A decentralized marketplace on an asset will create the first viable alternative to legacy banking, as it will be feasible to find a loan from a stranger to a stranger without a formal credit rating process. This flexible and trust-free financial system is the missing link for a full anarcho-capitalist society.

New software is being developed that follows a prediction market or a decentralized marketplace design. Built on top of the Bitcoin network, this will enable people to speculate on future events and trade with no middleman. The software functions without a central authority. Anyone can create a market to trade in, and at no time is any party restricted from exchanging with another. The market has a built-in automated settlement and clearing system. Currently, the software is in its beta phase, with the testing of a slowly distributed application that issues an S-base (digital asset). This S-base will facilitate speculation with the digital asset and will help increase funding for the project. This type of software provides a platform for companies that do not want to deal with regulatory red tape to issue a secondary stock offering. Peers can claim dividends from the company and trade the stock anywhere with a good reputation, be it in their home country or on vacation; find and buy insurance, which will be cheaper and more liquid than with a localized currency; or even create and trade a commodity/currency futures contract. This software can enable people to do very cheap forex trading and remittances. The ultimate goal is to create a diverse array of microeconomic applications and provide the user with an unprecedented range of options and customizability.

3. Challenges and Controversies Surrounding Bitcoin

Before utilizing Bitcoin as a vehicle for investment, it is crucial to recognize the challenges and controversies surrounding the current and projected uses of the currency. Money laundering has plagued the banking industry for years, and it will no doubt manifest as an integral part of Bitcoin’s development. This is in part due to the relative anonymity with which Bitcoin can be transferred from one person to another. According to an article by Jean-Louis, money laundering utilizing digital currencies can be summarized as a process in which ‘dirty money’ is injected into the digital currency flow in one country, then transferred to a recipient in another country (usually a less regulated country) where it carries a higher value, and then converted back into a new currency. The money can then be reused in the original country, and the transaction can be repeated. Finally, due to the potential of Bitcoin and other digital currencies to blur the distinction between national and international value and transaction types, it is argued that digital currencies will make it more difficult for countries to enforce traditional forms of monetary control. This may have an impact on central banks’ ability to influence national price levels through control of the money supply. At the current time, these central issues concerning money laundering and national monetary policies have not been addressed sufficiently by Bitcoin to mitigate the exchange’s negative impacts on global economies.

3.1. Bitcoin and Money Laundering

A recent study estimated that around $600 billion is laundered worldwide, which is between 2 and 5% of global GDP. Money laundering is a process that criminals use to make stolen or illegally obtained gains appear legitimate by funneling them through a series of banks or legitimate businesses. Changes to the UK money laundering regulations now mean that firms with the ability to move, hold, or control client money (such as bitcoin exchanges) must be registered with and monitored by the FCA. Bitcoin has been described as an “ideal system for money laundering” because users can make transactions using only an alias, which does not need to be linked to any real-world identity. There is even an in-development tumbler service that will mix a user’s transaction with other transactions, making it difficult to determine the origin of the funds. Bitcoin tumbling is likely to continue to be a popular service because, while traditional laundering methods for bitcoin have been proven ineffective, there is still a large demand for a way to make transactions with the cryptocurrency more private and untraceable. The implications of these regulations for UK bitcoin exchanges are that they will need to carry out more rigorous checks on their clients, maintain thorough records of identification and transaction data, and, in certain cases, report activity to the authorities. As well as possibly being put off by the large costs of compliance, it could mean that some UK exchanges are put out of business because of the competitive disadvantage and loss of clientele incurred by rigorous regulation. However, exchanges should not view the new regulations in an all-too-negative light. This is because online-only identity verification services have been approved by the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group for low-risk cases, and the contracts for these services can be fairly simple to integrate with an online platform. Also, the new regulation could potentially make bitcoin more attractive to banks and institutional investors, who have largely remained on the fringes due to concerns over its links to criminal activity. This is because once the source of the stigma is removed by a reduction in money laundering and other financial crime, they may decide that bitcoin is a feasible investment.

3.2. Environmental Impact of Bitcoin Mining

Recently published work has determined that, due to its energy-hungry algorithm, the carbon emissions produced by the Chinese Bitcoin mines are equivalent to 4 million transatlantic flights. The study goes on to claim that this is a cause for concern in the future, as it could raise the global temperature by 2 degrees Celsius as soon as 2033. This could breach the target set by the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. Such an eventuality could lead to volatile and unpredictable weather patterns, putting food and water resources in jeopardy and having huge social and economic costs. In response to this, the Chinese government has had to step in and implement restrictions on Bitcoin mining, making it illegal to mine.

Many have raised concerns about the environmental impact associated with some aspects of Bitcoin. The latest research has shown that the process of mining Bitcoins, which requires an increasing amount of computational power, uses a large amount of energy. This is due to the way in which the rate of block creation is hardcoded into the system. This process is set to create a block every 10 minutes, but it can be adjusted with relative ease according to the power of the hardware the miner uses. Essentially, this means that the more miners that join the network, the harder the problems will get. There are now a very small number of bitcoin nodes that are able to earn rewards (i.e., newly minted coins) on a competitive basis with the difficulty level and block rate as they are.

3.3. Government Regulations on Bitcoin

Elsewhere, in particularly financially unstable countries, Bitcoin has been welcomed with open arms. In countries such as Argentina, Greece, and Brazil, the local economy has been in turmoil with hyperinflation and a breakdown in public trust in conventional banking systems. High fees generated through credit card activity and a variety of government EO’s have meant people have turned to the anonymity of Bitcoin for everyday purchases and as a store of wealth in the form of US dollars. Due to the decentralized and deregulated nature of Bitcoin, it has enabled a black market for the currency to be attainable at a better rate with very few excess costs. In Greece, for example, capital controls and ATM withdrawal limits have left some people stranded and unable to gain access to fiat currency. An Austrian BTC trader in the country has seen a 600% increase in customers and volume of trading since midterm guidance or an overthrow of the top-down decisions is a long-term savior for these countries might be too much to ask.

Cryptocurrency’s troubled existence has been linked with governmental interference and regulation. Since its beginning in 2008, the United States has been very skeptical with regard to Bitcoin. Changes to the 4th Amendment tax code in the county meant that virtual currencies would be treated as property rather than currency. This decision has repercussions to this day, with equity and cost basis adding a huge deal of complexity. To pay and reduce the deficit over a decade, it is claimed it would generate over $16 billion USD, although the cost of implementation and pressure from various Bitcoin lobbyist groups have meant there could be some give on this decision.

4. Future Outlook for Bitcoin

Recently, Bitcoin has been well positioned as an evolving asset in the portfolio of institutional investors. It continues to see growing acceptance despite setbacks to its image as a “safe-haven” asset within the global market. Olivier concludes that from a macroeconomic perspective, Bitcoin has evolved through three broad phases: goods and services, capital assets, and future expectations. In the current third phase, future expectations and Bitcoin’s acceptance as an investment and emerging store of value are legitimizing the asset amongst both retail and institutional investors, further solidifying its position in global financial markets. Although this suggests Bitcoin is establishing its position in the global financial landscape, there has been varied speculation about whether Bitcoin can move any further than its current standing as an alternative to fiat currency within the global economy. Step and Vaerenbergh identified that Bitcoin had provided an alternative to traditional fiat currencies, excluding it as a direct competitor to central banks and state money. If Bitcoin is to carve a place in the global economy as a direct competitor to central bank-issued money, this may signal a transition to the third phase in a model similar to the adoption of currency boards as a prelude to nation-state currency substitution. The king explains that if a critical mass of people start using Bitcoin as a new form of money, then we will likely see a monetization process and a transition to Bitcoin becoming a unit of account in the price of various goods and services. This level of success would be the holy grail for Bitcoin in achieving the third phase as a unit of global value, essentially representing a crypto world dollar.

4.1. Potential for Mainstream Adoption

As of now, Bitcoin is not widely accepted by merchants as a form of payment. There are pros and cons when it comes to mainstream adoption. In developed countries, being paid in Bitcoin is an attractive option due to its lack of dependency on a central bank. Additionally, international and online payments can be processed quickly and relatively cheaply because Bitcoin is not subject to the costly fees associated with exchange rates or the fees associated with inter-bank money transfers. A party living in a developing country where access to banks and financial infrastructure is limited could see great benefit in holding a form of money that is immune to corrupt banks or governments and has lower transaction fees compared to microfinance institutions. For the billions of unbanked people that need to participate in the global economy, these attributes make a global economic system based on Bitcoin more attractive than their current access to limited or no banking services. Bitcoin has been recognized as a form of private money in Germany and is therefore subject to capital gains taxes. Although the tax law varies globally, it is still gaining increasing recognition and has a growing base of users. Step by step, there is a constant increase in the number of Bitcoin ATMs around the world. An initiative in Switzerland is to create Bitcoin banknotes, which would be on par with their paper Franc counterparts. Continuing progress may see Bitcoin as a real alternative in some form to government fiat money in the distant future. However, you will still need to pay your taxes and employee in the local currency and report your income to the tax man. At the end of the day, someone must accept the local currency for Bitcoin to be used to pay a tax debt or an employee. So, Bitcoin is a long way off being able to directly compete with the local government’s money. A shadow economy and unreported income can still greatly benefit from the fungibility and ease of ‘cleaning’ that Bitcoin provides. As an off-the-books parallel economy has often led to hyperinflation and mass devaluation of the local currency, adopting Bitcoin may be a way to access foreign hard currency loans and participate in global trade. All of this is a double-edged sword, though, because it can often attract unwelcome attention from the government and law enforcement, who would see Bitcoin’s lack of traceability as a hindrance to their detection of criminal tax evasion and money laundering. Overall, widespread, global, and time-sensitive economic factors make for highly variable effects across different countries at different times. But as the saying goes, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” a Bitcoin economy is very much a speculative and emergent thing that can be universally beneficial if properly developed.

4.2. Impact of Central Bank Digital Currencies on Bitcoin

Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) are the most recent attempt by governments to digitize paper money. This is anticipated to modernize the entire financial system. It will also be used as a tool to gather more specific data on consumers than cash has been able to provide. It is too early to assess the impact of CBDCs, given that they are largely still in the research stage. However, their potential impact on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could be significant. Depending on the design and the extent of CBDC use, they could pose a risk to existing bank deposits, a less severe risk to commercial bank money if they are substituted rather than simply an extension of central bank money, and a greater risk to non-bank private payment systems. This could force out some existing players, and the eventual outcome could be a consolidation of payment systems towards state-controlled ones. This poses a threat to monetary and financial system stability as it may become procyclical with government-controlled financial systems, gaining and losing more efficient private sector systems depending on the prevalent economic conditions. It may also be associated with an increase in cross-border state taxation of money via inflation to subsidize government spending. This is an old trick known as “seigniorage,” and inflation taxation is known to be harmful to economic growth and is another possible source of currency competition through devaluation. Given that the outcome of CBDCs may not be favorable to the economy as a whole, the level of political independence of central banks will be an important factor in determining whether or not to implement them. Heavily politicized central banks with little regard to financial system stability will be more likely to go ahead with detrimental changes. If CBDCs do result in the crowding out of private sector systems, there would be fewer places to turn for more sound money and efficient global remittance. This could provide a stepping stone for Bitcoin to become a tolerable alternative. With the current backlash against big tech and social media through anti-trust laws, the global remittance industry for the likes of Facebook may also be under threat, and a theoretical success in their Libra initiative might still face political barriers from the old guard, especially if a USD peg is seen as a threat to USD seigniorage. In this changed political climate, Bitcoin may be able to gather more favor than originally thought.

4.3. Technological Advancements in Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the first and most widely adopted cryptocurrency. As such, any significant changes in its protocols or usage by the general public would have widespread implications. Yet it does not have a monopoly on the future of digital currency. The last few years have seen an explosion in the number of altcoins, and these will pose a significant challenge to Bitcoin’s long-term viability. An important factor in Bitcoin’s potential to remain the dominant cryptocurrency will be the rate of development of Bitcoin’s technology to improve its utility and scalability. This has become an increasingly important topic with the rapid approach of what has been called “The Blockchain Wars.”. These refer to a potential future in which the uses of blockchains from different cryptocurrencies begin to overlap, and these cryptocurrencies compete directly with each other in a battle for survival in the free market. This could lead to a situation where cryptocurrencies are devalued because of an excessive supply. As a result, a cryptocurrency might suddenly find itself without the resources to maintain its infrastructure, leading to a “treacherous landscape (where) chains will start to suffer dramatic and abrupt deaths” (The Blockchain Wars: How Startups and Enterprises are Implementing Ethereum), a situation undesirable for any cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin. In such a landscape, the cryptocurrency most likely to survive will be the one whose infrastructure is the most cost-efficient, which is currently viewed as being the blockchain that requires the least amount of resources to secure the network per unit of value being transferred across it: Bitcoin. An example of Bitcoin’s cost-efficiency importance was the recent decision by online game store Steam to stop accepting Bitcoin for purchases because of the excessive fees required for transactions. To help ensure its future, Bitcoin needs to retain this title as the blockchain with the highest cost efficiency. This will require frequent technological improvements and possible fundamental changes to Bitcoin’s protocols. An example of such a change is the currently highly disputed concept of implementing block size restrictions to alter the supply of block space and reduce fee market competition. This concept is considered detrimental to the utility of Bitcoin by some, but positing multiple methods of achieving the same result and a compromise on one may be essential for Bitcoin in a future scenario like the “treacherous landscape.”.