Institutional Adoption of Bitcoin: A Timeline
Over the past few years, we have seen a significant increase in institutional support for Bitcoin. A lot of big firms such as Microsoft have accepted bitcoin as a method of payment, and some have purchased bitcoin in large quantities for a general investment fund.
Bitcoin’s ease of transaction and security of storage are one of many reasons behind its adoption as a payment method. Due to its limited supply, bitcoin is also believed to be an alternative asset to hold as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation, further solidifying its position as an investment portfolio.
Bitcoin now has won the trust of not only firms but also governments, as El Salvador has officially accepted it as legal tender. These could be the primary reasons why you should invest in Bitcoin. In this article, we list down institutional adoption of Bitcoin from time to time, starting from the most recent ones. Check out the list below.
2021
El Salvador
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced in a recorded message played at a Bitcoin conference in Miami Saturday that he would propose legislation to the country’s congress, to make cryptocurrency legal tender in the Central American nation. The president’s proposal was approved on June 8, 2021, and Bitcoin is accepted as a formal legal tender in El Salvador. The people of the country have been using the lightning network daily even before the president passed this law.
Visa
Visa and BlockFi have partnered to release the Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card to U.S. residents in all states except for New York (due to regulatory restrictions) in spring 2021. The card will be issued by Evolve Bank & Trust, and Deserve will be a technology and program management partner for the card.
Apart from that, Visa is piloting transaction settlements in stable coins on the Ethereum blockchain. The credit card provider that moves billions of dollars each day in 200 markets today announced it accepted the first settlement payment in U.S. Dollar Coin (USDC), a cryptocurrency pegged to U.S. dollar in a 1:1 ratio, from its global crypto wallet partner Crypto.com over the Ethereum blockchain.
Axa Insurance
AXA is the first all-lines insurer in Switzerland to allow its customers to pay their bills with Bitcoin. This represents an investment in the company’s digital future in response to growing customer demand for more choices when it comes to payments.
Nexon
A South Korean-Japanese video game publisher, Nexon, said it made a $100 million purchase of bitcoin, adding itself to the ranks of companies such as Tesla and MicroStrategy that used corporate cash to load up on the leading cryptocurrency.
Meitu
Hong Kong-listed Meitu Inc., which makes image and video processing software, said it has purchased $22 million in ether and $17.9 million of bitcoin, making it the first time a firm has disclosed a major purchase of ETH for its treasury.
Tesla
Tesla invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin in 2021, a disclosure that follows Chief Executive Elon Musk’s bitcoin and cryptocurrency promotion on Twitter. Tesla’s decisions granted positive responses from the bitcoiners. By April 2021, Tesla tested Bitcoin’s liquidity by selling off 10% of his Bitcoin holding. Does Tesla accept Bitcoin? By May 2021, Tesla decided to halt Bitcoin payment because of the energy usage issue. Tesla remains holding its Bitcoin reserve until further notice.
Marathon Patent
Nasdaq-listed Marathon Patent Group announced that it has purchased around 4,813 bitcoin for about $150 million.
2020
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. has purchased $100 million in Bitcoin for its general investment fund, the latest mainstream firm to dabble in digit assets. The mutual insurer also acquired a $5 million minority equity stake in NYDIG that provides cryptocurrency services to institutions. NYDIG will provide custody services for MassMutual’s Bitcoins.
PayPal
PayPal has entered the cryptocurrency market in 2020, announcing that its customers will be able to buy and sell Bitcoin and other virtual currencies using their PayPal accounts.
Stone Ridge
Through partially-owned subsidiary New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), Stone Ridge Holdings Group has accumulated 10,000 bitcoin, valued at approximately $115 million in October 2020.
Square
Payments platform Square has purchased $50 million in Bitcoin, part of its larger investment in cryptocurrency. Square bought a total of 4,709 Bitcoins, which the company says represents about 1 percent of its total assets as of the end of the second quarter of 2020.
MicroStrategy
Business Intelligence (BI) giant MicroStrategy has revealed that it has purchased 21,453 Bitcoins (BTC) for $250 million. This bitcoin purchase is part of their company strategy to adopt Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset.
Announced with the company’s Q2 2020 results, MicroStrategy’s new strategy sought to invest in “alternative” assets. MicroStrategy CEO Michael J. Saylor said the company’s new strategy aims to maximize long-term value for its shareholders
Microstrategy owns more than 100,000 BTC until date.
Coca Cola
Amatil, the drinks’ giant’s bottler and distributor in the Asia-Pacific region, has enabled cryptocurrency as a method of payment through its partnership with the Centrapay platform. As of 2020, there are now over 2,000 vending machines in Australia and New Zealand which are geared to accept cryptos to pay for drinks.
2019
Unicef
UNICEF enabled its supporters to receive, hold and disburse donations of cryptocurrencies ether and bitcoin, through its newly-established UNICEF Cryptocurrency Fund. In a first for United Nations organizations, bitcoin is used for funding open source technology benefiting children and young people around the world. UNICEF is the first organization in the UN that accepts crypto donations.
Starbucks
Starbucks customers can use the Bakkt app to pay for drinks and goods at the coffee chain with converted bitcoin. According to the app’s creators, 500,000 people took up the invitation-only, early access program to test the digital wallet as a method of payment.
2018
Fidelity
Fidelity Investments is spinning off a stand-alone company dedicated to bringing cryptocurrencies to institutional investors. Called Fidelity Digital Assets, the limited liability corporation based in Boston provide enterprise-grade custody solutions, a cryptocurrency trading execution platform and institutional advising services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, designed to align with blockchain’s always-on trading cycle.
Blackrock
Blackrock, a company that listed in NASDAQ, began to dabble its interest in cryptocurrency in 2017. The executive began creating a working group to learn about cryptocurrency. But only until 2021 Blackrock started trading in Bitcoin futures.
Goldman Sachs
Despite mocking Bitcoin for a long time, in 2018 Goldman Sachs, began to trade with clients in a variety of contracts linked to the price of Bitcoin. In 2021, Goldman Sachs offered its private wealth client to invest in Bitcoin. Goldman Sachs’ decision was a result of the high demand from their clients.
2017
CME
CME Group announced that it plans to introduce trading in bitcoin futures by the end of 2017. Chief Executive Officer Terrence Duffy cited increased client demand as a key reason for this decision. As a result, the Bitcoin price hit a high of $6,600.84 just hours after breaking through the $6,400 barrier, and a minute after moving past the $6,500 mark. Since then CME became the biggest futures player in cryptocurrency. Not only Bitcoin, in 2021 CME group also introduce Ethereum futures.
2016
Steam
The popular gaming platform Steam began accepting Bitcoin as payment for video games and other online media. Valve, the company that owns Steam, enlisted Bitpay as the payment processor to facilitate Bitcoin payments and help target international customers where credit card payments weren’t as ubiquitous.
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