Coinbase's former Chief Technology Officer: Bitcoin is the biggest unicorn of the past decade.

Since the strong surge earlier this year, Bitcoin has experienced a volatile second half of the year, with the price currently hovering around $7,475, only about half of this year's high. However, an angel investor believes that Bitcoin is the biggest unicorn in the past decade.

Bitcoin: The Biggest Unicorn of the 2010s

Former Coinbase CTO and co-founder of Coin Center, Balaji S. Srinivasan, stated that Bitcoin is the biggest unicorn of the past decade, surpassing Silicon Valley startups like Uber, Snapchat, and Airbnb.

Srinivasan pointed out that Uber's current market value is around $49 billion, Airbnb is about $35 billion, and Snapchat is at $23 billion. Clearly, compared to Bitcoin's $135 billion market value, these well-known companies pale in comparison.

As the decade ends, the biggest unicorn of the 2010s wasn’t Uber, Airbnb, or Snap. It was Bitcoin.

— Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) December 4, 2019

Srinivasan also emphasized in a subsequent tweet:

Note that the above list (and many other unicorns) are all great companies and this is not meant to be a knock on them. But to my knowledge, no other institution has stayed at a $100B+ valuation over the long term. This is critical from an investor’s perspective.

Over the past decade, Bitcoin has transformed from a name known only to geeks and cryptographers as an interesting technology, to one of the globally recognized financial tools, gradually challenging the dominance of gold as a long-term store of value.

Regulations are being put in place worldwide to manage cryptocurrencies, indicating that governments acknowledge Bitcoin's nascent stage and its continued existence. Some governments are even considering providing secure custody for Bitcoin; for example, EU countries recently passed new regulations allowing German banks to hold and sell cryptocurrencies starting in 2020.

Bitcoin Network Growing Stronger

Reports indicate that predicting the future trends of Bitcoin in the next decade is challenging, but its fundamental principles provide a clearer indicator.

The Bitcoin hash rate, crucial for network security, has been on the rise since its inception. According to data from Blockchain.info, the hash rate has increased from 0.0 EH/s per second in 2010 to 89.64 EH/s in December 2019.

Furthermore, the daily on-chain transaction volume of Bitcoin has surged from $0 in 2010 to over $1 billion currently.

Many industry experts believe that the network fundamentals bode well for the Bitcoin price in the long run. Spencer Bogart, partner at Blockchain Capital, expressed optimism about Bitcoin's future in an interview with Bloomberg, stating:

I think the question people need to ask is: Will Bitcoin be more successful in the next five years than it is today? I think if you look at all the potential trends, they are all very constructive. Bitcoin has gone from being a joke a few years ago to processing $3 billion of crypto assets every day.

Further Reading

• Bloomberg: Cryptocurrency Funds Shrink, Retail Traders Drive the Market
• Indian Government to Promote Renewable Energy Through P2P Energy Trading Scheme

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