The main trend for Bitcoin in 2015 is that not much happened. The price is within 10% of where it was at the beginning of the year. Transaction volume in dollars is flat, or down a little. Many of the companies which were accepting Bitcoin no longer are; those that are report low transaction volumes. (There are lots of merchants which "accept Bitcoin" because it's an option in some shopping cart programs, but those just send the Bitcoins to Coinbase, which converts them to dollars and sends the funds to the merchant.)
The big trends in Bitcoin seem to be:
- Amateur hour is over. The remaining exchanges are bigger and seemingly more stable, although none of them are up to bank-level yet. New York's Bitcoin regulation seems to have been accepted.
- Mining is more centralized than ever. Most of the big Bitcoin miners are in cold areas of China with cheap power. China has well over 50% of the hash rate now. This may just be a way to convert yuan to dollars. (China has currency controls, but encourages exports. For a few months, it was legal in China to buy Bitcoins with yuan through regular payment channels, then sell the Bitcoins outside China for dollars. That drove the $1000 Bitcoin bubble, and was shut down by the People's Bank of China last year, causing the Bitcoin crash. Mining Bitcoin in China, and selling it outside China, is considered "exporting" and is a legal way to convert yuan to dollars.)
- Since the shutdown of Silk Road I and Silk Road II and the related arrests, Bitcoin is no longer considered a safe way to buy drugs. This doesn't seem to have affected the price much one way or the other.
- Bitcoin ATMs are disappearing. In the SF bay area, Hacker Dojo and Workshop Cafe got rid of theirs, and Nakamoto's doesn't have theirs working. Hero City (a co-working space) may still have one.
History of Bitcoin:
2013: Wow!
2014: Aargh!
2015: Meh.
The big trends in Bitcoin seem to be:
- Amateur hour is over. The remaining exchanges are bigger and seemingly more stable, although none of them are up to bank-level yet. New York's Bitcoin regulation seems to have been accepted.
- Mining is more centralized than ever. Most of the big Bitcoin miners are in cold areas of China with cheap power. China has well over 50% of the hash rate now. This may just be a way to convert yuan to dollars. (China has currency controls, but encourages exports. For a few months, it was legal in China to buy Bitcoins with yuan through regular payment channels, then sell the Bitcoins outside China for dollars. That drove the $1000 Bitcoin bubble, and was shut down by the People's Bank of China last year, causing the Bitcoin crash. Mining Bitcoin in China, and selling it outside China, is considered "exporting" and is a legal way to convert yuan to dollars.)
- Since the shutdown of Silk Road I and Silk Road II and the related arrests, Bitcoin is no longer considered a safe way to buy drugs. This doesn't seem to have affected the price much one way or the other.
- Bitcoin ATMs are disappearing. In the SF bay area, Hacker Dojo and Workshop Cafe got rid of theirs, and Nakamoto's doesn't have theirs working. Hero City (a co-working space) may still have one.
History of Bitcoin: