Here’s Why Bitcoin Could Become a Legitimate Currency in the Future
Originally published August 2021 · Updated May 2026
Here’s the thing — this article has no intention to convince anyone to buy or sell bitcoin, nor to believe it is the currency of the future that will replace fiat currencies and make the economic system more “fair”. Nope, not at all.
Surely, bitcoin is a revolutionary idea — a new currency with a limited supply that is not controlled by any government. Whether you are an anarchist or not, you must find something appealing in that. But at the same time, there are so many conflicting views about Bitcoin — even claims that it is a scam, a pyramid scheme, an illusion that will fade very soon.
The truth, in our view, is somewhere in the middle. And five years on from when we first wrote this, that view has actually been reinforced — not overturned.
What Has Changed Since 2021
When we first published this article, Bitcoin was trading around $30,000-$40,000, El Salvador had just made it legal tender, and institutional adoption was still largely theoretical. A lot has happened since.
Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $126,000 in late 2025, driven by a perfect storm of catalysts: the approval of US spot Bitcoin ETFs, the fourth halving in April 2024, and a seismic shift in US regulatory policy under the Trump administration. In March 2025, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — directing federal agencies to consolidate all government-held Bitcoin (around 328,000 BTC, worth roughly $25 billion) into a single Treasury-managed reserve. The US is now the largest known government holder of Bitcoin in the world.
This was unthinkable when we wrote the original article. A sitting US president creating a national Bitcoin reserve is not the behavior of a government that views it as a scam.
As of May 2026, Bitcoin trades around $93,000-$95,000 — still well below its all-time high, but up roughly 200% from where it was when this article was first written.
Bitcoin Could Be Another Means of Exchange in the Global Currency System
The original thesis of this article was modest: Bitcoin probably won’t replace the dollar or the euro, but it could become another legitimate means of exchange alongside them. That argument has aged well.
In the beginning, Bitcoin was developed as a protest against central banks that print money and create inflationary pressure. Following the COVID-19 pandemic — when governments printed more money than at any point in modern history — that argument gained real traction. The question of whether printing money is good or bad is no longer academic.
But the interesting development is that Bitcoin’s role has evolved beyond that original anti-establishment narrative. It is now increasingly viewed as digital gold — a store of value and a hedge against currency debasement — rather than a day-to-day payment currency. Institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, and now governments themselves are holding it as a reserve asset.
The El Salvador experiment is instructive here. In 2021, the country made Bitcoin mandatory legal tender — the first country in the world to do so. The results were mixed: by 2024, 92% of Salvadorans were still not using Bitcoin for transactions, and in early 2025, facing IMF pressure, the country reversed the mandatory acceptance requirement, making it voluntary. The lesson: Bitcoin as a daily payment currency faces real practical barriers — volatility, technical complexity, and the simple fact that people already have currencies they trust.
But El Salvador’s Bitcoin holdings tell a different story. The government holds over 5,000 BTC, currently worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and has been buying more. Tourism surged 30%+ since 2021, partly driven by Bitcoin’s branding. What failed as a payment mandate succeeded as a national strategy.
The Bottom Line — The Future Is Still Uncertain, But the Stakes Are Higher
When we first wrote this, the debate was whether Bitcoin was a scam or a revolution. That debate is largely over. Bitcoin is a legitimate asset class — that much is settled. The remaining question is what kind of asset it will become.
The most likely scenario, in our view, remains what we said in 2021: Bitcoin becomes another instrument in the global financial system — not the dominant one, but a recognized, legitimate one. Think of it like gold. Gold doesn’t replace dollars or euros, but it occupies a clear and permanent role in the global monetary system. Bitcoin appears to be carving out a similar role, just faster and more chaotically.
The US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, if it receives congressional approval, would cement this. For the world’s largest economy to hold Bitcoin as a national reserve asset — alongside gold and foreign currencies — would be the final legitimization that the original Bitcoin believers could only dream of in 2009.
There are still real risks. Bitcoin’s volatility remains extreme — it dropped from $126,000 to under $70,000 in a matter of months in late 2025 and early 2026. The congressional approval for the US reserve is stalled, with thin bipartisan support and no clear funding mechanism for future purchases. And the broader question of whether Bitcoin can ever truly function as a stable medium of exchange — the original vision — remains unanswered.
But the trajectory is clear. When we wrote this article in 2021, Bitcoin was an experiment. In 2026, it is a strategic reserve asset held by the world’s most powerful government. That’s not nothing.
At last, the most important thing remains what it always was: whether the ecosystem around Bitcoin maintains the fairness and accessibility that was the original idea. No excessive fees, no manipulation, no unnecessary complexity. Just a digital asset that works — as another currency, or another form of gold, or something entirely new. The world is still figuring out which one it is.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
