BTC’s journey to the mainstream: Wall Street, government agencies and payment giants are key promoters

Bitcoin is the world’s first cryptocurrency and the most famous cryptocurrency. With the recognition of asset legitimacy, the price of Bitcoin has recently hit record highs. Among them, the surge of interest in Bitcoin investment by large American investors has pushed up its price. One of the main reasons.

As large companies, large investors, banks, and payment processors have taken steps to make Bitcoin gradually become mainstream in the past few months:

Bitcoin is recognized by the investment community

May 2020:

Fund manager Paul Tudor Jones (Paul Tudor Jones) proposed that Bitcoin should be used as a store of value.

August 2020:

The business software giant MicroStrategy, led by Michael Saylor, announced the purchase of 21,454 bitcoins for $250 million, which can be said to be the “first shot” of large companies investing in bitcoin.

November 2020:

Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller (Stanley Druckenmiller) and BlackRock (BlackRock) head of fixed income business Rick Rieder (Rick Rieder) made positive comments on Bitcoin, they all think Bitcoin Can be used as a gold substitute.

January 2021:

Investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co said that if Bitcoin becomes a recognized “safe haven,” its price is expected to reach $146,000.

According to data disclosed by the asset management company CoinShares, the weekly inflow of funds into cryptocurrency funds and products has reached a record 1.3 billion U.S. dollars, and the total investment scale has reached a new peak of 34.4 billion U.S. dollars.

February 2021:

Electric car manufacturer Tesla announced the purchase of $1.5 billion in bitcoin and said it will soon accept bitcoin as one of the vehicle payment methods.

The big companies that now own Bitcoin include: the 169-year-old insurance giant MassMutual, the asset management company Galaxy Digital Holdings, the payment company Square founded by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the Canadian software company Snapper, and Mining listed companies Marathon and Argo.

Bitcoin acceptance increases

July 2020:

The Office of the Director of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency of the U.S. Banking Regulator said that domestic banks and the Federal Reserve Association of the United States can provide cryptocurrency custody services

October 2020:

Payment processing service provider PayPal allows customers to store bitcoin in its digital wallets and supports 26 million merchants on its network to use bitcoin for shopping.

February 2021:

Mastercard disclosed plans to support cryptocurrency payments through its network.

The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) announced the launch of a new digital currency custody department to help users trade various digital assets including cryptocurrencies. It will expand its business to stable currencies such as USDC, tokenized securities and real estate in the future. Eventually it is even expected to provide services for the central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Purpose Investments, an asset management company based in Toronto, Canada, launched the world’s first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (BTC ETF).

The parent company of SBI, Japan’s largest online brokerage company, said it plans to establish a cryptocurrency joint venture with overseas financial companies. SBI CEO Kitao Yoshitaka said that the company aims to expand its business and has plans to use cryptocurrency as a core pillar of corporate profitability, but he declined to disclose information about potential partners.