In Search of the Ideal Bitcoin Jurisdiction

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Tuesday, June 17, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/search-ideal-bitcoin-jurisdiction/

Jurisdictions embracing bitcoin and bitcoin-related businesses can dramatically improve their countries' economies in a multitude of ways. But, what exactly would a favorable bitcoin jurisdiction look like?

For starters, it would ideally have no VAT or capital gains tax on bitcoin transactions and would encourage an active two-way exchange market with national currencies.

Commercial banking partners would not be subject to costly and overbearing regulatory guidelines that threaten or impede innovation. Furthermore, wallet providers, merchants, and payment processors would be under no restrictions.

Isle of Man

As the bitcoin protocol expands globally, we are already witnessing some jurisdictions announce their intentions to become welcoming business hubs for bitcoin innovation.

Most recently, UK Crown dependency, the Isle of Man, outlined plans to provide an environment that enables companies operating within the bitcoin space to flourish and its government posted an informative Questions & Answers document.

Capitalizing on the inability of more bureaucratic jurisdictions to embrace bitcoin, group General Counsel for Counting House Services Paul Davis emphasized:

“They cannot come here to launder money, defraud the public, or damage the island’s reputation. But they can pitch their tent here, do their business, build their software and offer their services.”

Furthermore, the island’s Financial Supervision Commission, confirmed in March that a bitcoin exchange holding client funds with a licensed overseas payment service provider is not required to obtain a licence in the country for its activities.

Luxembourg

Luxembourg also made headlines earlier in the year when it publicly advertised its intention to start an open dialogue with bitcoin businesses seeking a jurisdictional home.

Several teams of bitcoin industry experts have already met with Luxembourg officials. Michael Jackson, partner at Luxembourg-based Mangrove Capital Partners, characterized his conversations with the country’s regulators thus:

“[They're saying] we’re very open to people coming here and explaining their businesses. We don’t have any problem with a bitcoin business, as long as it does what it’s supposed to do and behaves properly.”

Jackson also expressed optimism that Luxembourg’s decision would carry weight in the broader European community, noting that it is a financial center of Europe.

Gibraltar

Somewhat reluctantly, Gibraltar has recognised its leadership role in the electronic payments industry for e-gaming and what that means for bitcoin. The British Overseas Territory has hosted two conferences, one in 2011 and one in 2014, that highlighted the strong business benefits for taking a leadership role on bitcoin integration.

KPMG’s Archie Watt told New Statesman:

"Low cost, low hassle cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have the gaming world pricking up their ears."

Two operators in Gibraltar have expressed to me privately that senior members of the Gibraltar government want the jurisdiction to lead rather than follow and that the responsive framework is already in place to make that happen.

A question of costs

When discussing bitcoin's benefits for an economy, one must distinguish between the economic benefits of a jurisdiction making itself appealing to bitcoin business versus the jurisdiction adopting bitcoin as its territorial unit, which is an entirely different strategy (to be covered in a future analysis).

The economic benefits of the former can be seen as setting the stage for bitcoin jurisdictional arbitrage.

'Jurisdictional arbitrage' is defined as the practice of taking advantage of the discrepancies between competing legal jurisdictions. According to Wikipedia, it takes its name from arbitrage, the financial practice of purchasing a good at a lower price in one market and selling it at a higher price in another.

Patri Friedman, grandson of economist Milton Friedman, explains that, just as in financial arbitrage, the attractiveness of jurisdiction arbitrage depends largely on its transaction costs – in this case, the costs of switching legal service providers from one government to another.

Reaping the rewards

With respect to extreme economic benefits, a jurisdictional hub for bitcoin with an independent and functioning court system would immediately experience an influx of new capital and new businesses, thereby contributing to a growing GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

“A forward-looking jurisdiction for bitcoin business would demonstrate strength and leadership for the new digital economy.”

Due to bitcoin's inherent lack of a third-party intermediary, the leading financial service industries of today would gradually become dis-intermediated and this newly open jurisdiction would serve as the disruptors' laboratory.

New, disruptive operators geared towards building out the bitcoin mobile payments infrastructure, funds transfer business and asset management industry would flock to the region, spurring vigorous job growth and opportunity.

The hub would soon find itself a magnet for related advisory services, venture capital, and other professional support services seeking to capitalize on the bitcoin boom. Retail banks could be rejuvenated as demand increases for true bitcoin services, such as foreign exchange, transaction escrow services, and trusted safekeeping.

Most significantly though, a forward-looking jurisdiction for bitcoin business would demonstrate strength and leadership for the new digital economy, catapulting the country and its people to the world stage.

Much like Gibraltar became the worldwide hub for e-gaming in 2004 and Zurich became the world's gold trading hub in 1968 due to the collapse of the London Gold Pool, a jurisdictional bitcoin haven would make history.

DISH, Overstock, and Bootstrapping a New Currency

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Saturday, May 31, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/dish-overstock-bootstrapping-new-currency/

On the heels of the recent Dish Network announcement to begin accepting bitcoin payments, we saw the same clueless chorus of naysayers and payment newbies come out claiming that Dish doesn't really accept bitcoin because they actually end up with US dollars.

It would be just as ridiculous to say that a hotel in Barbados doesn't accept US dollars because, after the VISA credit card transaction, the hotel ends up with Barbados dollars.

Dish Network selected bitcoin payment processor Coinbase to manage the foreign exchange conversion risk in the same way that other international merchants select credit card processors. It matters not what the merchant's native currency is, but what they permit consumers to use when purchasing.

As with Overstock's decision to begin accepting bitcoin payments, the Dish announcement is significant because it adds yet another payment outlet for holders of bitcoin and it brings another large merchant into the ecosystem of processing bitcoin transactions.

Dish's executive vice president and chief operating officer Bernie Han said that Dish sees its new payment option as a way to boost customer service:

“We always want to deliver choice and convenience for our customers and that includes the method they use to pay their bills.”

One cannot overlook the fact that something as mundane as a payment option is also being strategically deployed as a competitive wedge in a branding and messaging campaign. However, this residual bonus has a diminishing impact as more companies announce their intention to embrace bitcoin and we move past its early adopter phase.

The monetary transition process

While some analysts observe that new merchant acceptance has the effect of creating downward price pressure for bitcoin, since processors immediately convert into national currency for their clients, I maintain that the entire process is simply part of bootstrapping a new currency.

And yes, selling pressure from new merchants converting out of bitcoin may not always be replaced by new buying. Bitcoin is barely in the early stages of this monetary transition process.

That process includes price discovery on liquid exchanges, creation of closed-loop systems to both receive and spend bitcoin, and finally, pricing of goods and services in the new numéraire.

The trend towards global participation

In an important but somewhat pessimistic paper, "Cryptocurrencies, Network Effects, and Switching Costs," William Luther observes that there is a systemic bias against monetary transition. His research concludes that despite the inferiority of the prevailing currency and due to both network effects and switching costs, "cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are unlikely to generate widespread acceptance in the absence of either significant monetary instability or government support".

As an economist, I disagree with this thesis because it fails to consider global usage and the potential for bypassing capital controls. Luther's cited monetary instability or government support are both conditions relevant only within the restricted political borders of a monetary regime. They may serve as great litmus tests in a confined jurisdiction, but they are utterly useless in considering cross-border transactions.

The trend towards global merchants participating in a global economy will only serve to strengthen this dynamic. We are witnessing it today with at least 60 countries blocked out of the current prevailing payment systems, and hence unaware of the switching costs and network effects of Luther's incumbent monies.

Quoting bitcoin prices

Beyond the network effect of incumbents, I do agree that the holy grail for bitcoin is having prices quoted and displayed in bitcoin rather than mentally going through a conversion process. This step completes the process for monetary transition and it is difficult to predict how that specific step occurs.

In "The Origin, Classification and Utility of Bitcoin," Peter Šurda correctly states:

“Even though not money, bitcoin is a medium of exchange ... While it is true that economic calculation is beneficial, this is merely one of the relevant aspects of media of exchange. Economic calculation depends on the unit of account, and while bitcoin is not used as a unit of account to any apparent degree, it may happen in the future, and its utility would increase even more in such a case.”

Redditor ISkiAtAlta makes an interesting observation on why it's not easier or more beneficial to (re)obtain bitcoin than it is to obtain or use fiat, claiming that we're not there yet because the barrier to obtaining bitcoin is too high and the perceived benefits have not yet been internalized – particularly for new users.

That above rationale addresses the issue of monetary switching costs, but I think it applies equally to the establishment of a numéraire, or favored unit of account.

Framing it as an issue of timing, ISkiAtAlta offers three items that must be present for motivating consumers to go through the trouble of transacting in bitcoin: (1) it has to become easier to obtain bitcoin, (2) people must see the value of holding their savings in bitcoin, and (3) merchants must offer discounts for bitcoin transactions.

I would add that consumers must have more user-friendly applications and that merchants must also see the value of holding balances in bitcoin which becomes reinforced by expenses and liabilities – expressed in bitcoin through supply chain vendor demand or employee demand. It becomes infinitely easier to maintain bitcoin balances if a merchant or company knows that risk can be reasonably hedged and that others will also accept settlement in bitcoin.

Bootstrapping a new currency is always a chicken-and-egg dilemma, but when it comes to volatility, original perspective can be helpful too. Perhaps it's not bitcoin that is volatile against the US dollar, but it's the US dollar that is volatile against the future store-of-value bitcoin.

Inching Towards Bitcoin Derivatives

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Tuesday, May 27, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/inching-towards-bitcoin-derivatives/

Bitcoin derivatives are more in demand than ever, as bitcoin company executives seek a way to hedge balance sheet risk. A liquid futures and options exchange for bitcoin will provide commercial hedging opportunities as well as increase overall price stability. This is not disputed.

What will be contentious, however, are the paths and methods necessary to get there. In this article, I examine exchange structure, exchange jurisdiction, the practicality of various contracts, and existing bitcoin futures markets.

What are derivatives?

Derivatives obtain their name from the fact that they are instruments derived from an underlying spot commodity or index.

In theory, the spot price of the physical commodity underlies and provides the basis for pricing in the futures market due to the explicit option for physical delivery. In the case of an index, cash settlements are typically the norm.

‘Call options’ and ‘put options’ based on the futures contract can also be offered. Exchange-traded products differ from customized over-the-counter products in that they are standardized, easily traded and underwritten by the pooled collateral of exchange members.

In the recent working paper from the Mercatus Center, authors Jerry Brito, Houman Shadab, and Andrea Castillo evaluate the emergence of derivatives in the context of bitcoin.

As the most detailed analysis to date concerning bitcoin securities and derivatives regulation, the paper argues that “financial regulators should consider exempting or excluding certain financial transactions denominated in bitcoin from the full scope of their regulations, much like private securities offerings and forward contracts are treated”.

The authors also anticipate what form the second wave of bitcoin regulation, mostly in the US, might take. I extend that thinking into the rationale for multi-jurisdictional exchanges and the free market emergence of bitcoin clearing houses to address counterparty risk.

Exchange structure

Any new bitcoin derivatives exchange will have to be electronic with 24/7 availability in order to mirror the existing spot markets for bitcoin trading. Just as with commodity exchanges that trade gold, silver, wheat and soybeans, warehousing partners will need to be established to accommodate the safe storage of bitcoin necessary for exchange integrity.

Ideally, the broker-dealer community will go through one of several wholesale clearing members to access the exchange for their clients, and these clearing members will underwrite the performance risk of their clients.

Posted collateral from the clearing members can take the form of cash, bonds or other liquid instruments determined by the exchange.

Furthermore, reasonable margin rules and position limits will have to be enforced to insulate the exchange and its clearing members during periods of extreme volatility.

Exchange jurisdiction

As evidenced by the likely manipulation in the precious metals markets and the MF Global debacle, government oversight of an exchange is no panacea for mischievous operators because the regulators themselves have been complicit for years.

Obviously, jurisdiction is important for the enforcement of contract performance, but exchanges would not require direct regulation for legitimacy.

Properly structured exchanges could easily facilitate and apply best practices for price discovery, trade clearing and trade settlement. Luxembourg and Gibraltar would be favourable early selections for such an exchange.

Also, multiple jurisdictions would be preferred for bitcoin derivatives exchanges in order to prevent a single jurisdiction, like the US, from exerting too much influence on an exchange that is vital to the bitcoin ecosystem.

Moreover, as bitcoin absorbs a greater and greater portion of overall economic activity, it could become tempting for certain jurisdictions to interfere in the price-discovery mechanism by participating in or encouraging naked short sales.

Former US Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers clearly understood the importance of managing investor expectations by suppressing gold prices as he was one of its principal architects.

In dissecting the methods of manipulation, Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, and investment expert Dave Kranzler conclude that the global volume concentration with just one exchange creates a single point of manipulation.

From their January 2014 paper, Roberts and Kranzler summarize the process:

“When gold hit $1,900 per ounce in 2011, the Federal Reserve realized that $2,000 per ounce could have a psychological impact that would spread into the dollar’s exchange rate with other currencies, resulting in a run on the dollar as both foreign and domestic holders sold dollars to avoid the fall in value. Once this realization hit, the manipulation of the gold price moved beyond central bank leasing of gold to bullion dealers in order to create an artificial market supply to absorb demand that otherwise would have pushed gold prices higher. The manipulation consists of the Fed using bullion banks as its agents to sell naked gold shorts in the New York Comex futures market. Short selling drives down the gold price, triggers stop-loss orders and margin calls, and scares participants out of the gold trusts.”

As a Fed bullion bank through the acquisition of Bear Stearns, JP Morgan has held aggregated positions in gold and silver far in excess of CME Group position limits, frequently relying on hedger exemptions and waivers.

With digital commodity bitcoin, such brazen price suppression from the authorities may prove to be the “last resort” option and the only viable method for desperate governments seeking to maintain their unfair legal tender monopoly.

Printing paper money to underwrite massive naked short selling on bitcoin exchanges is the greatest single threat to bitcoin’s long-term dominance as free market money. Multiple worldwide competitive exchanges would mitigate the impact of such a grim scenario.

Practicality of contracts

From the balance sheet perspective, bitcoin futures contracts would more logically adhere to the standards already in place for currency futures contracts. Therefore, typical contract specifications for bitcoin would include the following currency pairs: XBT/USD, XBT/EUR, XBT/GBP and XBT/CNY (all currently tracked by CoinDesk’s BPI).

“Cryptocurrency futures markets seem poised to transform currency risk management again in the post-legal tender era.”

Contract months would be quarterly in March, June, September and December, with the last trading day being the 15th of each settlement month.

Contract sizes would vary based on bitcoin valuation and growth, but it is logical to assume that 100-bitcoin and 250-bitcoin contracts would be the early norm. Initially, the minimum trading interval (or tick) would be 0.01 bitcoin.

Proposed margin requirements for the 100-bitcoin contract could be structured at 10.00 bitcoin for initial margin deposit and 8.00 bitcoin for maintenance margin deposit.

Accounts would be marked-to-market at the close of trading day for purposes of determining new margin capital or forced liquidation. For overall integrity, each exchange should also publish and adhere to aggregated position limits.

As pointed out by the Mercatus study, an alternative would be to denominate contract prices in bitcoin and hold margin funds in bitcoin, thereby eliminating the need for traditional bank or financial institution accounts. This would be possible if the contract was cash settled in bitcoin and the exchange maintained bitcoin warehousing requirements.

Existing bitcoin futures markets

Expect the terrain to shift dramatically in the coming months, but currently the largest and most significant bitcoin futures market is ICBIT.se operated by Alex Stukalov. The company is in the process of registering in an offshore jurisdiction and facilitated more than $15m-worth of bitcoin futures trading during the last 30 days.

Romanian-based MPEx operated by Mircea Popescu displays BTC/EUR futures with settlement each month and displays contracts in the standard calendar months for bitcoin “network difficulty” futures, however, it remains to be seen whether sufficient and tradeable liquidity exists. Indeed, MPEx/MPOE shuttered its BTC/USD options trading in February 2014 due to lack of a robust pricing feed.

We can learn a lot about bitcoin futures exchanges by studying these predecessors, especially in the areas of customer support, liquidity and counterparty risk. Neither ICBIT.se nor MPEx serve as a clearinghouse for their customers’ trades, which is an essential element of a formal futures exchange. Furthermore, verifiable volume reporting will be critical as these futures exchanges will most likely play an important role for bitcoin price discovery.

The other operators claiming to be in the derivatives and hedging business are actually offering non-standardized margin trading by offering interest rates on borrowed funds. Notable entrants for margin trading include BitFinex, BTC.sx, Bit4x and still-in-beta Coinsetter.

After the unwinding of the Bretton Woods currency arrangement in the 1970s, the gun-slinging traders of the Chicago pits transformed financial futures with various products designed to manage floating currency risk.

Now, nearly 45 years later, cryptocurrency futures markets seem poised to transform currency risk management again in the post-legal tender era.

When Payments Become Political Weapons of Mass Destruction

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Wednesday, May 7, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/payments-become-political-weapons-mass-destruction/

Executives at Visa and MasterCard awoke yesterday morning to learn that Vladimir Putin’s Russia had passed legislation requiring foreign credit card brands to post $3.8 billion in total security collateral, the equivalent of two days’-worth of transactions processed in the country.

After Russia reunified with (or annexed, depending on your point of view) Crimea, Visa and MasterCard complied with stringent White House sanctions and blocked transaction activity at several Russian banks. Both financial companies rightly feared a backlash from their actions.

Under the new law which goes into effect on July 1st, no foreign payment system may unilaterally cut services to Russian clients and they must base their processing centre in Russia, with transaction data maintained within its borders.

Additionally, there will be fines of up to 10% of the collateral deposit per day for unilaterally stopping services to a bank. For Visa, the required collateral deposit actually exceeds their annual returns from operating in the country.

Earlier, the credit card companies stopped working with Bank Rossiya and Sobinbank due to a previous round of US government sanctions.

Now, per the more recent sanctions, that ban is extended to the Russian banks SMP and InvestCapitalbank. Both banks are controlled by the Rotenberg brothers, Boris and Arkady, who are linked to large gas pipeline contracts and various Sochi Olympics contracts.

Payments networks have now become political weapons of mass destruction. This is a disturbing trend, because if the selective halting of international credit card networks can be deployed against political enemies, then nearly no country is safe.

Business models disrupted

An admittedly nervous Visa statement on Tuesday explained: “We regret any disruptions that the institutions, their cardholders or merchants may experience. All of Visa’s systems are processing normally, and we continue to service our other unaffected Russian clients.”

MasterCard stated that they will remain “open for business as usual with all our Russian banks, with the exception of Rossiya, Sobinbank, SMP Bank and InvestCapitalBank. Service of cards issued by the latter two banks will be stopped shortly according to the revised US sanctions announced today.”

Visa and MasterCard process about 90% of all card transactions in Russia and the new law completely disrupts their business and technological models.

Visa’s Chief Financial Officer Byron Pollitt told the Financial Times that “issues with Russia and Ukraine were already affecting cross-border volume and sanctions would impact on payment volumes.” He added that the company expects several pennies of earnings per share impact for the fiscal year.

However, Visa CEO Charlie Scharf remains optimistic, telling analysts, “If you just get down to reality for a second, we have 100 million cards in Russia today. And it’s not in anyone’s best interest, inclusive of the Russians, to make those cards not available to their own citizens.”

Home-grown system

Similar to France’s Carte Bleue and Germany’s Geldkarte, the Russian central bank plans to establish a national payments system for handling domestic card transactions in Russia.

For international transactions, Russia is inspired by China’s UnionPay, the rapidly growing payments platform whose cards are accepted in 135 countries and is now bigger than MasterCard and second only to Visa in processing volume. Who needs Visa and MasterCard in a world of payments innovation?

We are witnessing more and more of these types of payment blockades in line with broader financial warfare occurring under the surface. In 2012, Belgium-based wire clearinghouse SWIFT discontinued service to 30 Iranian banks following intense pressure from Washington, DC.

And who could forget the proverbial rug being pulled out from under Wikileaks by the Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal giants.

In July, the US plans to unleash the IRS on Russian banks further destabilizing the current situation.

Risky game

Centralized systems have always had the weakness of being driven by both external and political forces. It’s simply an inevitable temptation when a single choke point exists in the network.

The same mischief that plays out between mega-states on the international stage just as easily plays out domestically in inflationary regimes like Argentina, where credit cards are frequently limited to domestic usage only and where hard currency and precious metals are difficult to obtain.

Once the payment mechanism starts to become used for achieving policy goals, the system has lost its integrity. Alternative payment methods that rebuke censorship begin to emerge, attracting new capital and new economic activity.

Meanwhile, in other related news, Ukraine climbed to the No.9 position in global active bitcoin nodes and Russia currently sits at No.7. Global active bitcoin nodes measure number of nodes in the distributed p2p network that maintain and broadcast the full bitcoin block chain.

In the words of Jim Rickards, author of The Death of Money, “only escalate the battle if you know where it’s headed.”

Visa and Mastercard could be significantly harmed by this obvious retaliation. In addition to mandating changes to the rules of the local payments network, Russia could freeze assets of US companies doing business in Russia and also begin to unwind its positions in US treasuries. And, that’s before they even get to the gas and oil markets.

Bitcoin Adoption, Not China's Central Bank, Is What Underlies Legitimacy

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Wednesday, April 30, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-adoption-chinas-central-bank-underlies-legitimacy/

The bitcoin ‘China Syndrome’ fills the news these days with attempts by Chinese authorities to steer bitcoin legitimacy. This gives us an excellent opportunity to contemplate and reiterate the core attributes of bitcoin’s overall strength.

Bitcoin shows that national fiat money systems are an artificial construct. The debates around regulation are really restrictions on getting into or out of the US dollar rather than getting into or out of bitcoin. Dollar and other national currency endpoints will always be regulated.

Aside from the fact that bitcoin survives and outlasts political institutions just like the Internet does, its greatest strength lies in the fact that it does not require government or other third parties to sanction its legitimacy. Bitcoin’s legitimacy derives from its market adoption and continued usage among its participants.

The exchanges, or on-ramps to the legacy financial world, are just convenient enablers and it makes sense for some threatened political institutions to clamp down on the facilitating enablers. Incidentally, it also reveals to the world which nations feel the most threatened by the existence of an incorruptible, non-political monetary unit.

Far more important to bitcoin’s future are the robust mining communities and the decentralized global nodes. Ultimately, any new bitcoin regulation yields market-based reactions to that jurisdiction’s regulation. Outright bans simply do not work. Price discovery still finds a way.

Of course, people in certain countries get annoyed when they cannot use an exchange to acquire or sell bitcoin and instead must go to excellent sites like LocalBitcoins to arrange a transaction. It can make you feel like you’re engaging in something seedy, but that is the intent of the regulators and the Fourth Estate. They drive it underground to dampen or slow adoption.

The way forward

We can do something. There is a solution. First, don’t worry every day about the USD or EUR price of bitcoin. Manage the risk via currency diversification.

Secondly, don’t fall victim to believing that nation-states can bestow legitimacy on a monetary unit. The most that governments can do is demand a favoured monetary unit in payment for taxes and other payments to the authorities, thus declaring a legal tender. A declaration such as that has little to no effect on person-to-person digital exchanges.

Also, reject the premise that bitcoin must be mainstream in order to be massively successful. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt for bitcoin to go mainstream, but not at the risk of diluting some of its core attributes.

Bitcoin needs to be successful on its own terms unlike PayPal, which capitulated from its original mission to then become a watered-down version of itself, enabling the same third-party choke points and legacy financial roadblocks that it originally set out to challenge.

Lastly, while research articles may tout a seductive future where ‘Bitcoin’s Promise Goes Far Beyond Payments‘, it is unlikely that a future of block chain-like applications will dispense with the original building blocks of bitcoin.

Bitcoin stands to win

Distributed trust networks are built upon gradually expanding computational strength provided by the network’s increasing hash rates. The incentive for continued mining is directly related to the value of the network-embedded monetary unit which is the bitcoin unit.

Side chains that exploit bitcoin’s early mover advantage are more likely to be the future of block-chain applications than government-managed trust networks that centralize and malign the incentives.

Therefore, bitcoin wins more broadly even though payments may only represent the first application of block-chain technology. The bitcoin monetary unit is the inseparable part of the world’s largest and computationally strongest distributed computing network.

Like languages, value standards trend towards commonality, which is why we will never see over 300 independent altcoin valuation standards succeed.

A standard for measuring value is similar to a standard for measuring volume, length, or temperature. The world may accommodate a few competing standards (like Fahrenheit and Celsius), but the market will reject an abundance of counterproductive competing standards.

Issues that broad adoption solves

As bitcoin is a global unit, we must talk about adoption on a global scale. It is insufficient to talk only of bitcoin adoption within a single country because its global nature breaks down borders for more robust international trade and transactions.

Unlike boundary-specific monetary units, bitcoin facilitates exchanges between different jurisdictions, thus weakening the advantage of the providers of the regional monetary unit. Bitcoin does not recognize the relevancy of jurisdictional borders and sees them as damage that it needs to route around.

Many positive things begin to happen with broad bitcoin adoption. For instance, the need for online local fiat exchanges begins to diminish because people on the receiving end of bitcoin are also able to spend bitcoin. A closed loop is created.

Also, the focus of bitcoin-related businesses shifts to usage rather than concerns around regulation, because if people are not exchanging bitcoin with fiat there become fewer regulatory endpoints to the legacy financial system.

All that remains are people trading digital scarcity ‘tokens’ for goods and services via their personal electronic wallets. Economic growth is centred around the participants of that new economy which reinforces market-based legitimacy for bitcoin.

Strategies for increasing adoption

How can we increase bitcoin adoption? This is the famous chicken-and-egg question. Do consumers lead the way for merchants to provide bitcoin payment choices, or do merchants provide fabulous bitcoin offerings that drive consumers to enthusiastically acquire their first bitcoins?

Both can be correct and there is no right or wrong answer. Aggregate consumer purchasing power could indeed influence merchant payment choices, while the fabled ‘killer app‘ for bitcoin will probably be merchant-driven.

Local groups and bitcoin nonprofits around the world could start holding contests with awards for the merchants that have the greatest bitcoin sales in a given period. ‘Bitcoin Accepted Here’ decals could be distributed in the same way that other payment decals are distributed. Large and influential merchants could debut shippable products to parts of the world that have no ability to purchase goods in the global economy without a bank card.

The existing bitcoin merchant processors like BitPay, BIPS, and Coinbase play a significant role in increasing adoption, especially since they provide streamlined apps and plugins for existing e-commerce software packages.

This will continue to be a high growth area as both physical and virtual merchants seek to plug into the rapidly growing bitcoin economy.

Consolidated consumer pressure promising large Groupon-like sales volume could also be directed at favoured merchants, thereby adding new bitcoin merchants to the ecosystem. This also creates a reason for consumers to acquire bitcoin.

Source: MIT Technology Review

As the chart above demonstrates, we are already witnessing greater bitcoin payments turnover than we were in the early years. This is encouraging because it means that new bitcoin is being transacted and used in some manner generally within 24 hours.

Furthermore, all of this has happened without an official government pronouncement or declaration of a legal tender. The future belongs to bitcoin.