If you haven’t seen the news, bitcoin has been enjoying a price surge this spring, and it’s looking like the cryptocurrency’s best run since the late-2017 boom. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily heading back toward $20,000, but it has shifted the narrative, somewhat, that bitcoin is in a prolonged or inevitable decline.
Now, once again, people are wondering as to what exactly the future has in store for this ever-interesting digital currency. As much as we may seek to answer this question through investment trends and price patterns, we should also keep in mind that bitcoin is still developing as a currency, also. It may have missed the mark in terms of establishing itself as a widespread replacement for money, but it’s still catching on with more stores and in more industries. If in fact, it ends up gaining a firm foothold in any major business sectors, the development could have some bearing on investment strategies.
So, as many get excited all over again for bitcoin’s growth, we’re looking into three industries in which there could be real potential for bitcoin moving forward.
Groceries
One of the mistakes we sometimes make is assuming that all uses of bitcoin as a currency pertain to the average consumer. It could be that in some areas businesses actually use bitcoin in a largely internal sense. It’s with this in mind that groceries and larger food industries can serve as perfect examples. There is already talk of blockchains being put to use in these areas. Such innovations could make food industry operations more transparent, more efficient, and more reliable, ultimately ensuring that grocery stores, restaurants, and other food outlets are run as smoothly as possible. And while this is mostly about organization, it could also be that different entities along the supply chain (from farmers to restaurants managers and store owners, and everyone in between) will ultimately end up using bitcoin for their own internal transactions. This would result in a lot of the cryptocurrency being used and exchanged regularly, even if it wouldn’t necessarily be happening on the consumer market.
Betting
Here we have more of potential consumer use. At this point, the American market is still at least somewhat unfamiliar with digital betting businesses, but internationally it’s been proven that there’s some appeal to using bitcoin when dealing with such businesses. People making betting or gambling deposits tend to be on their guard about security and transparency, and while established betting firms already go to great lengths to provide these things, bitcoin can do so, to some extent, by itself. This could ultimately affect bitcoin usage in America because currently, betting bitcoin businesses are on the verge of mass expansion across the country. New Jersey’s sportsbooks are leading the way, and imitations will soon follow given that betting legislation is under consideration in roughly half the states in the country. All of this is going to usher in numerous platforms, and some, it stands to reason, will deal in bitcoin.
Travel
The idea of bitcoin use in travel-related transactions is actually not entirely about potential. That is to say, it’s already possible to use bitcoin in a lot of transactions like these, with a variety of booking sites already having chosen to accept cryptos. Security and transparency are valued with these sorts of purchases, but there’s additional appeal that comes from bitcoin’s universal nature. While one can typically book a trip with one’s own native currency, travel costs can bring about confusing jumps between one currency and the next, making bitcoin an appealing workaround of sorts. Maybe more than any other individual space, travel has proven that bitcoin payments can stick, and for this reason, we could well see further expansion of the currency’s utility.
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