Has Bitcoin grown in the past year despite the price?

[pcbacon]

Heres what I mean.
Has the bitcoin network gotten stronger over the past year? I would say yes there is high hashpower than last year, theres been a lot of bug fixes,
Are more people using bitcoin than last year?
There have been a number of big moves for bitcoin this year, Lightning network and the world overall is more aware of bitcoin. Are there any more big bitcoin news  events that happened this year.
Negative news is the price but its not all about the price sometimes.

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[BuyBuyBitcoin]

Every 10 minutes bitcoin gets stronger and more secure.

And every 10 minutes shitcoins still smell funny....

[mk4]

Bitcoin has really been good this in terms of fundamentals, and I don't see things slowing down any soon. Calling the fundamentals "good" is even a huge understatement. I think we've honestly had worse FUDs last year, but the markets have been reacting the opposite for some reason; and also not to mention last year was just mostly full of speculation, compared to this year whereas there's actually a lot of development going on.

Also, the BCH hash war is affecting the markets a lot worse than I anticipated. Not sure how long this will drag out, but I sure hope it ends asap.

[pooya87]

you are correct about the hashrate increasing which has made the network that much stronger but i don't know what "bug fix" you are talking about. there has been no bugs in bitcoin protocol to be fixed to make it stronger! however, there has been some bugs in some wallet applications and implementation like they always are which were fixed like always. i wouldn't say that made bitcoin stronger!

as for more people, i believe the real adoption is growing despite the price but there is another kind of adoption by the speculators and those who want to become rich over night and that was peaked by the end of 2018 and then fell down as price went down.

[squatter]

Heres what I mean.
Has the bitcoin network gotten stronger over the past year? I would say yes there is high hashpower than last year, theres been a lot of bug fixes,
Are more people using bitcoin than last year?
There have been a number of big moves for bitcoin this year, Lightning network and the world overall is more aware of bitcoin. Are there any more big bitcoin news  events that happened this year.
Negative news is the price but its not all about the price sometimes.

The first sidechains have come online -- RSK and Liquid.

you are correct about the hashrate increasing which has made the network that much stronger but i don't know what "bug fix" you are talking about. there has been no bugs in bitcoin protocol to be fixed to make it stronger! however, there has been some bugs in some wallet applications and implementation like they always are which were fixed like always. i wouldn't say that made bitcoin stronger!

Well, there was a pretty serious bug in the last several releases of the reference implementation (run by most of the network) that was fixed a couple months ago. It could have been used to inflate the Bitcoin supply:

This week’s major bitcoin bug was even worse than developers initially let on.

The bug originally rocked the bitcoin world when it was reported the vulnerability could be used to shut down a chunk of the network.

While this sounded bad enough for many, it turns out developers for Bitcoin Core kept a second, bigger part of the bug a secret. As disclosed through an official Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) report, an attacker could have actually used it to create new bitcoin – above the 21 million hard-cap of coin creation – thereby inflating the supply and devaluing current bitcoins.

[Marcel666]

Heres what I mean.
Are more people using bitcoin than last year?
There have been a number of big moves for bitcoin this year, Lightning network and the world overall is more aware of bitcoin. Are there any more big bitcoin news  events that happened this year.

I would not say 'more aware'. Bitcoin has gained awareness since coming on the scenes and lots of attention has been placed on it, sometimes secret. But projects like lightening network can now use Bitcoin to garner popularity by linking up with it.

I do not have the figures for adoption rate. But, Majority of enthusiasts are driven by speculative value and less concerned about product worth.

[Reid]

Yes.

We are looking too much at the price and not value but if they really want to talk about it then it is still a yes.

We got so much used with the jump that happened in bitcoin price.
I remember last year when it was just $900 at January 2017. I am already overwhelmed with it and then it jumped to $2k at May 2017.
Afterwards it jumped too much that it was really unbelievable.
Let us not compare the price from December 2017 to December 2018. That is not how it goes.

[davis196]

The blockchain network is strong,but I don't think that the number of bitcoin users increased during 2018.
The online merchants just refuse to accept bitcoin and they always have an excuse about it.Last year there was the huge price growth,this year-the bearish market and the fear of another big price crash.
However,nobody can give you the correct answer.

[BuyBuyBitcoin]

The blockchain network is strong,but I don't think that the number of bitcoin users increased during 2018.

The price went from 1k to 20k in 2017. We had too many people get into bitcoin during that period that the trickle joining this year just seems that much smaller.

The online merchants just refuse to accept bitcoin and they always have an excuse about it.Last year there was the huge price growth

Businesses need to earn a stable currency. Especially businesses that need to pay employee's and vendors with a stable currency.

New asset classes are anything but stable.

A business owner needs to be involved or passionate about bitcoin to "risk" taking bitcoin over Fiat with their business.

It wont be "stable" for another 10 years, so people within crypto need to start more businesses or just wait it out.

[EllieBasti05]

Yes! Bitcoin growth is really awesome for the past several years.

Starting from $200 to $6000 then $5600 as of this month bitcoin grown bigger and remain top among cryptocurrencies. More people interested to invest specially what happen last years bull run but because of that many people are in to trading and not for investing that is why the value of bitcoin decreases.

That is why bitcoin is volatile that is has no stability on value and no one can predict of it.

[sheenaedago]

Yes! Bitcoin growth is really awesome for the past several years.

Starting from $200 to $6000 then $5600 as of this month bitcoin grown bigger and remain top among cryptocurrencies. More people interested to invest specially what happen last years bull run but because of that many people are in to trading and not for investing that is why the value of bitcoin decreases.

That is why bitcoin is volatile that is has no stability on value and no one can predict of it.

  I believe bitcoin will grow immensely as long as there are still people believe and acknowledge it fluctuant prices. Somehow, volatility is part of market field, yet the market is on bearishness, still we have to be firm and be positive the for its outcome. And keep waiting for the massive bull run.

[Pursuer]

bitcoin's "growth" is not based on its price although it is the most visible and measurable factor but it is not the defining factor. the growth is all about adoption of bitcoin which can be seen in the number of merchants that are accepting bitcoin as payment and also number of people who now own some bitcoin. it is hard to measure because there isn't any database to have ALL the merchants in it and also it is impossible to know how many people own bitcoin. but with information that we already have (databases that list bitcoin merchants, blockchain analysis) we can see that there is a growth. although growth is always bigger faster during price rallies but it is still happening this year too.

[figmentofmyass]

bitcoin's "growth" is not based on its price although it is the most visible and measurable factor but it is not the defining factor. the growth is all about adoption of bitcoin which can be seen in the number of merchants that are accepting bitcoin as payment and also number of people who now own some bitcoin.

since you need to own some bitcoins to join the network, that's directly related to price because it means you have to buy some. more users = more buyers = higher price. i figure that was satoshi's logic when he suggested bitcoins would be worth a lot if they ever caught on.

that's why i think price is the best gauge for growth. transaction volumes can be gamed, and services/merchants don't exhibit user demand for those services/merchants. price shows supply vs demand, which at least gives us an idea about demand from users.

[YuginKadoya]

I can say that despite the crashing price of bitcoin it is just caused by the certain drama over some Altcoins And other people that only want to have money instead of the welfare of bitcoin, We can say that through the years bitcoin is improving and still can improve a lot, now we had the lightning network I don't see any complaints in the transaction time in the forum, But there are more FUDs that still lurking here because they only want their own welfare, And I think in the more years to come more people will be aware of bitcoin and more people are now getting involved with it and getting the spotlight it should have.

[Trinity_boy]

I think so because there are big players that started accepting Bitcoins this year. If I can recall, I think Samsung and Ferrari are one of them. If that is the case, then it's one indication that Bitcoin has indeed grown over the this year. I believe there are also countries that are seriously considering it as well. I think all these are good premonition for bitcoins.

[@rt27]

The progress of bitcoin is very obvious despite of serious circumstances. There are rumors that it is a scam but actually not. It just used to scam people because bitcoin is one of the potential coin in the market. We can observe the growth of bitcoin through the increase of community. People are the reason behind of bitcoin strength to move forward. Even there will have again and again obstacles bitcoin can manage that.

[dothebeats]

Fundamentals are looking good IMO albeit the recent flash crash. The scaling issue that seemed to bother people a lot in 2015-2017 has been addressed in the mean time thanks to SegWit being deployed. Sidechains are rolling out, though I don't really know how that'll help but they're there and people are expecting them to somewhat alleviate the load in the main chain.

Well, there was a pretty serious bug in the last several releases of the reference implementation (run by most of the network) that was fixed a couple months ago. It could have been used to inflate the Bitcoin supply:

This week’s major bitcoin bug was even worse than developers initially let on.

The bug originally rocked the bitcoin world when it was reported the vulnerability could be used to shut down a chunk of the network.

While this sounded bad enough for many, it turns out developers for Bitcoin Core kept a second, bigger part of the bug a secret. As disclosed through an official Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) report, an attacker could have actually used it to create new bitcoin – above the 21 million hard-cap of coin creation – thereby inflating the supply and devaluing current bitcoins.

A similar bug/exploit happened back in 2013 or 2014 I believe that flooded the market with fake bitcoins. Luckily it was immediately fixed and nothing severe has happened in the market.

[eminemcookie]

Heres what I mean.
Has the bitcoin network gotten stronger over the past year? I would say yes there is high hashpower than last year, theres been a lot of bug fixes,
Are more people using bitcoin than last year?
There have been a number of big moves for bitcoin this year, Lightning network and the world overall is more aware of bitcoin. Are there any more big bitcoin news  events that happened this year.
Negative news is the price but its not all about the price sometimes.

I'm not sure if the bitcoin market could be said to have grown this year, but I don't think that there have been any steps back (except the price) which will only be a benefit in the long run, there have been steps made by institutions to enter the market for crypto and I think we'll see more of them come in to fruition in 2019.

[zoeylee]

In my opinion, i would say yes despite the unstable market price but still it made the bitcoin developed and grown. In the sense that people would still believe on the capacity of bitcoin's market. The longer the experienced the stronger it become.

[Dudeperfect]

I believe that the year 2017 was the year when Bitcoin and blockchain technology event mainstream which attracted new users towards it and there was exponential growth in the user base of Bitcoin. However, the price rally was the result of the involvement of big waves and institutional investors there was a significant increase in the domain of user base.