(buy gold)
Bitcoin's use as a medium of exchange has cratered over the last year, dropping from a high of $411 million in transactions last September to a "scant" $60 million in May across the largest 17 crypto merchant-processing services, according to research conducted for Bloomberg by firm Chainalysis.
While the amount merchant services such as BitPay, Coinify and GoCoin received increased slightly in June to $69 million, it was still a far cry from the $270 million received a year ago, Chainalysis found. -Bloomberg
Volatility, meanwhile, has moderated:
While cryptocurrency advocates have long suggested that Bitcoin or other virtual currencies will someday replace fiat currency as a medium of exchange, the historically volatile cost of crypto transactions, the convenience of traditional payment methods and spikes in Bitcoin volatility have hampered its use.
...MORE“It’s not actually usable," Nicholas Weaver, a senior researcher at the International Computer Science Institute, said in an email. Often, he said, "the net cost of a Bitcoin transaction is far more than a credit card transaction." And Bitcoin-based transactions can’t be reversed, an issue when a merchant or a consumer comes up against fraud. -Bloomberg
You know, if use of and interest in bitcoin continue to decline, volatility should continue lower with the amplitude of the moves looking something like this:
