Origin: Bitcoin was born from this block!

This week, Turong will interpret the hottest concept "blockchain" for three consecutive days. Today, we will first review one of the most mature application scenarios of blockchain technology, "Bitcoin". On January 3, 2009, the first member of the blockchain family, the Genesis block, was launched. The Bitcoin blockchain conveys a simple message: "January 3, 2009, The Times, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is about to apply for a second round of bailout for banks." Bitcoin was born from this block!

  Bitcoin has come a long way from its initial proposal by pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. From its adoption by innovative technologists and libertarians, the technology has continued to grow and evolve, moving from its earliest incarnations to wider research and world financial applications.

Like early cutting-edge technologies like the Internet, Bitcoin still has a long way to go. Bitcoin has had to deal with relentless attacks from the news media for its links to Silk Road and drugs. When the Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox collapsed, investors who embraced Bitcoin too early lost millions. Many people predicted, "Bitcoin is dead."

But as Bitcoin approaches its seventh birthday, we see a shift in gears. Bitcoin is turning into a curious and exciting technology, and its ideas are spreading far and wide. The possibilities of cross-border payments, electronic transactions between machines, smart contacts, microtransactions, and stock settlements have been discussed and implemented. Nothing is off limits in this field, and problems are constantly being discovered and solved.

From the early days of using laptops to mine, Bitcoin miners have now built industrial data centers, using hundreds of high-speed, purpose-built machines to do the job. In January 2014, the total computing power of Bitcoin was only 10 million GH/s, but now it can reach 50.4 million GH/s. With new mining machines being produced and sold, this number will continue to rise.

During the same period, there were about 50,000 bitcoin transactions per day. Now there are 170,000 transactions per day.

Much of this growth can be attributed to the increase in the number of merchants accepting Bitcoin payments. In 2014, approximately 65,000 merchants accepted Bitcoin payments. By mid-2015, there were already 100,000 merchants, a 50% increase. TigerDirect, an American shopping website, witnessed this change - 46% of all buyers using Bitcoin were new customers. Furthermore, orders paid with Bitcoin increased by 30%. In August 2015, Bitcoin payment service company BitPay recorded more than 70,000 transactions. This shows that Bitcoin's influence as a trading tool is expanding.

Bitcoin as an asset class is also booming. For most of 2015, its price fluctuated between $200 and $300. However, in the past few weeks, the price of Bitcoin has risen sharply, reminiscent of the boom years before. From January 2013 to January 2014, it soared from $13.41 to $808.05, reaching a peak of $1,147.25 on December 4, 2013. Just one month ago, on January 4, 2013, its price was only $225.20. The Bitcoin "bubble" is inflating. On the other hand, the peak market value of Bitcoin has dropped from an all-time high of $14 billion to about $5 billion at the time of this article.

Despite this, venture capital continues to pour into the space. In 2013, bitcoin companies raised $93.8 million. In 2014, that number reached $314.7 million. With only two months left in this year, bitcoin and blockchain companies have already raised more than $1 billion.

Regulations are also changing. Previously, politicians have publicly opposed Bitcoin because of its use in the underground trading market Silk Road. Now, organizations such as Coin Center, a cryptocurrency research and education organization, and the Chamber of Digital Commerce are urging politicians and regulators to redefine Bitcoin's status and help it gain influence around the world. New York has led the way in this regard, recently issuing a BitLicense to regulate industry behavior. Not to be outdone, the European Union recently decided to exempt Bitcoin from VAT, sending a clear signal to participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Finally, the next phase of blockchain companies will continue to grow. Augur, a “decentralized prediction market” company, announced that it raised $5.1 million on a crowdfunding platform. Ethereum, the next-generation smart contract and decentralized application platform, also raised $18.4 million on a crowdfunding platform. It is estimated that the fully decentralized P2P e-commerce site OpenBazaar will be operational in the next few months.

As shown above, many of the leaders in the Bitcoin industry discussed how to keep Bitcoin growing and where it is headed. Bitcoin is no longer marginalized, it is now everywhere. Whether it is for miners, payment service providers, Bitcoin wallet companies or developer tools, the situation is simple and clear: Bitcoin is growing. And its ambitions are no less than those of the great technologies before it.