Headline November 24, 2018/ '' 'BITCOIN'S -BLURRY- BITINGS' ''

'' 'BITCOIN'S -BLURRY- BITINGS' ''

THE USE OF BITCOIN........ for commercial payments has dropped dramatically this year, even as the original digital coin starts to fulfill one of the basic features of any currency stability.

The value of  bitcoins handled by major payment processors, shriveled nearly 80 percent in the year to September, data from blockchain researcher Chainanalysis shows.

That suggests the cryptocurrency is struggling to mature from speculative asset to a serious alternative to state-issued money.

Months of relative calm in bitcoin prices after the wild swings of last winter had fuelled hopes it would become widely used for payments, its intended purpose.

But its collapse in use as a payment currency has instead left big finance and crypto insiders eyeing better and better technological infrastructure to help bitcoin take off as a way to pay.

''There would have to be stability requirement if it is to become another form of money,'' said Joni Teeves, a strategist at UBS in London.
''But one thing that would take bitcoin into the mainstream is scalability - is to able to process the value or volume of transactions that money tends to do?''

The blockchain technology where all bitcoin activity is recorded and validated, can only process a fraction of the transactions per second that major credit card companies can. That renders its mass use impractical.

Bitcoin still endures torrid swings in price, as this week's 30 percent plunge shows. For a spell last month, though, the use of cryptocurrency was more stable than U.S. stocks.

Despite that growth stability, the value of bitcoin payments collapsed to $96 million in September from a December high of $427 million, the data from Chainanlysis shows.

The firm surveyed 17 bitcoin payments processors, including Atlanta based BitPay, one of the biggest.

Most merchants that accept bitcoin do not do so directly, instead using intermediaries like BitPay to convert bitcoin to flat currencies.

Comprehensive data on bitcoin used for payments is patchy, as trades with other currencies tend to be included along with its use of commercial payments.

That said, separate figures for individual payments processors reflect the downward trend.

At Vancouver-based Coinpayments, for example, incoming and outgoing transactions slumped by more than half between January and October, according to blockchain analysis site OXT.

Coinpayments did not respond to requests for comment.

''Bitcoin payments processing is seeing a slow but consistent decline, said Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech strategy at research firm Autonomous Next, of the data on Coinpayments.

First Decade Then :
Through its first decade, Bitcoin has attracted a mix of investors, some convinced that it can reshape  global finance by displacing traditional means of payments and -

And others attracted by rapid gains that pushed it close to $20,000 in December.

It has since lost three-quarters of its value, falling below $4,500 on Tuesday, burning businesses along the way that had hoped to profit from growing investor interest.

It now stands to seem that Bitcoin for payments a distant dream as usage dries up.

The Honor and Serving of the latest Global Operational Research on Bitcoin and Future continues. The World Students Society thanks the Agencies.

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