Bitcoin has yet again become the center of attraction. The top cryptocurrency, born during a financial crisis, had surprised many after it ‘failed’ to stand by its ‘safe-haven‘ narrative during the recent market crash. However, many Bitcoin promoters have stood by the coin and have asserted that the narratives around Bitcoin cannot be pushed away based on its short-term movement. Roger Ver, CEO of Bitcoin.com, is the latest to comment on the same.
Ver believes that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could have stood by their claims and provided shelter to people during this uncertainty, but they failed to do so as they were “not ready yet.” According to Ver, BTC’s scalability issues, high fees, and slow transactions continue to be the main factors driving away merchant adoption.
That being said, there have been various proposals implemented to increase the efficiency of cryptos like Bitcoin. Lightning Network on BTC promises to increase the coin’s transaction speed and solve scalability issues, while the ETH 2.0 upgrade aims at repairing all the loopholes that were noted in ETH 1.0. Similarly, the MimbleWimble protocol on Litecoin also promises better privacy in Litecoin among other use-cases.
With all this happening, Ver is still of the opinion that the advancements are not yet up to the mark. He said,
“I feel like cryptocurrency and Bitcoin specifically could have been ready. This could have been the moment to shine and really take over the world and go head to head and supplant some of these government issued currencies. The lightning network’s not ready yet. The Bitcoin fees are still high and network still gets congested.”
On the other hand, Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, was of the opinion that the world is one step closer to bringing Bitcoin to a billion people. She noted that “Lightning is making this a reality.”
Ver also shared his thoughts on the ‘store-of-value’ narrative of Bitcoin. In his opinion, for any asset to be considered a store-of-value, it has to be used as money. Talking about BTC, there are no other use-cases apart from it being used as a payment network. Gold and silver are considered store-of-value for many years as they can be used as money; the two metals are used in all sorts of industrial use cases because of its ability to also be used as money, unlike BTC.
Source: BTC/GLD Realized Correlation, skew
Talking about the correlation between BTC and Gold, BTC has long been referred to as ‘Digital Gold,’ and some even raised questions on this narrative as Bitcoin did not follow the same pattern as gold post ‘Black Thursday’. As seen in the BTC/GLD realized correlation chart, the correlation that was at 55.8% on 13 March, dropped quickly, reaching 25.3% on 16 March. At press time, the 2-month realized correlation of BTC-GLD was at 38.9%.