n the U.S. people generally use Bitcoin as an alternative investment, helping diversify a portfolio apart from stocks and bonds. You can also use Bitcoin to make purchases, but the number of vendors that accept the cryptocurrency is still limited. Big companies that accept Bitcoin include Overstock, AT&T and Twitch. You may also find that some small local retailers or certain websites take Bitcoin, but youโll have to do some digging. That said, PayPal has announced that it will enable cryptocurrency as a funding source for purchases this year, financing purchases by automatically converting crypto holdings to fiat currency for users. โThey have 346 million users and theyโre connected to 26 million merchants,โ says Spencer Montgomery, founder of Uinta Crypto Consulting. โItโs huge.โ
Should I buy bitcoin?
โTo the extent it is used I fear itโs often for illicit finance. Itโs an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions, and the amount of energy thatโs consumed in processing those transactions is staggering,โ the former Fed chairwoman said. Yellenโs comments have been cited as a reason for bitcoinโs recent losses. However, Yellenโs assessment of bitcoin as a inefficient medium of exchange is an important point and one that has already been raised in the past by bitcoin bulls. Using a volatile asset in exchange for goods and services makes little sense if the asset can tumble 10% in a day, or surge 80% over the course of a two months as bitcoin has done in 2021, critics argue. To put a finer point on it, over the past 12 months bitcoin has registered 8 corrections, defined as a decline from a recent peak of at least 10% but not more than 20%, and two bear markets, which are defined as falls of 20% or more, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
