As I think back over the years, Bitcoin has been on the news over and over, and not always for the best reasons.
From Mt. Gox to the Silk Road, Bitcoin seemed to always attract controversy.
I distinctly recall one of the ways Bitcoin hit the news, when Bitcoin mining became possible with Graphic cards. Not too many years ago, AMD released a graphic processor by the code name "Hawaii." I remember that time well, because every single last Graphic Card with that chip in it, namely the R9 290 and 290X, were being bought up by Bitcoin miners. Anyone trying to buy that graphic card was SOL.
There were people scalping used 290's on ebay for 1500 dollars, when they were supposed to retail for 400 dollars. It was crazy. These days you can still mine altcoins with a 290 and make 2 or 3 bucks per day. The Hawaii chip was built to really last and take a pile of abuse. Believe me, I have 3 of them mining altcoins still and the cards just won't die (knock on wood). I bought them new for a steal after the bitcoin craze was taken over by Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC's), and retailers were selling them at cost because ebay was flooded with used Hawaii Graphic cards... literally flooded.
I laugh at how ironic this press slide was at the time. These graphic cards were hardly used for gaming, but they're still mining beasts.
Anyway, looking back through all the controversy and bad press, Bitcoin never really procured the mindshare one might have expected it to. That is, until Bitcoin started gaining enormous marketshare this year. With that increase in marketshare, the public mindshare grew as well.
I recall even 6 months ago talking about bitcoin and cryptocurrency with my older brother, and he didn't even know what it was. I felt like a complete nerd trying to explain it. Now, with bitcoin breaking 10K, I mentioned it again yesterday to him, and there was an interest in what I was saying and talking about. Even more than that, a knowledge of what bitcoin was and where it was going. That is progress, and it wasn't even me who brought him up to speed, it was the mindshare that Bitcoin has gained over this past year as the awareness permeates through the Ether of social media.
Bankers, investors, business owners... really, any person who has an interest in finance is now in the know when it comes to Bitcoin, at least that it has real value. most people still don't really comprehend the magnitude of what Bitcoin is, but they know one thing: everybody who is a somebody seems to want a piece of the bitcoin pie, and they are forking over large sums of money for it. In that sense, Bitcoin at 10K may seem like a huge bargain a year from now, just as Bitcoin for 1K would seem very underpriced right now. As Bitcoins mindshare grows, it will help propel the marketshare even further, and vice versa. This coming year should prove to be an exciting one for crypto enthusiasts.
As always, good luck and good fortune to my fellow Steemians. Thank you for reading and please toss me an upvote if you enjoyed this post.