How Google Helped Legitamize Bitcoin

If you go to Google.com and type “price of bitcoin,” you will immediately get back something like this:

It’s a new feature that Google (GOOGL) just added to their search engine.

Now of course, you could find out the price of bitcoins prior to Google implementing this price calculator.

So why, then, do we think it’s noteworthy?

Because Google has a converter for all major currencies. And so this is just another sign, another little milestone, that the cryptocurrency is steadily growing in acceptance.

Early Bitcoin adopters were able to turn tiny sums into megabucks. Like Kevin Koch, for example, whose $27 balance grew to more than half a million dollars.

But despite the meteoric rise in the digital currency’s value, we’re still only in the early days.

Just over a week ago, Coindesk, the world’s “go to” news outlet for all things bitcoin, published their State of Bitcoin Q2 2014 Report. They pulled together a lot of exciting facts and statistics.

For example, there are now over 63,000 businesses that accept bitcoin for payment.

Why?

One reason is because, unlike credit card companies which skim about 3% off the top of every transaction, the process of exchanging bitcoins is essentially costless.

This has huge implications.

Global payments-related revenues exceed $300 billion each year. But Bitcoin could change all of this. It has the potential to turn the banking and financial services industry on its head. (Yes, like us, we’re sure you’d also be quite upset if the big banks were to fall.)

This is why over the last 12 months alone over $200 million of venture capital money has poured into bitcoin-related businesses.

Some very smart people are betting big. People like Marc Andreessen, the Silicon Valley guru, entrepreneur, investor, and co-developer of the world’s first web browser. Last December he invested $25 million in the bitcoin company Coinbase.

But Bitcoin is not without its detractors. Critics say the technology is too difficult for the average person to understand and that people can be ripped off.

Andreessen says he’s seen this movie before. This is what people said about the internet in its early years. And you know how that turned out… Says Andressen: “Basically every single criticism ended up getting solved. Every single supposed fatal flaw got eliminated.”

We’re still in bitcoin’s early years. And what we’re witnessing right now is a very exciting experiment playing out before our eyes.

Bitcoin went up by over 5000% in 2013. Some people think it’s going a lot higher. Like internet entrepreneurs Cameron and James Winklevoss, who have invested $35 million in the digital currency. Their conservative estimate is that it will pass $40,000 a coin. That’s about 60 times what a bitcoin is worth today.

The question is: do you want to be a part of it? Or do you want to remain on the sidelines?

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