The use of mobile applications to help grow the bitcoin ecosystem is incredibly important.

This is why our monthly BitPanel bitcoin meetup, held in downtown San Mateo, will be focused on mobile apps this month.

In preparation for our event this week, I recently asked the ZapChain community their thoughts about how important mobile will be to the development of bitcoin as a mainstream technology everyone uses.

Brock Pierce, Founder and Managing Partner of Crypto Currency Partners (CCP), answered, in regards to smartphones: “It’ll be the primary and likely sole device for the majority of users.”

Dan Romero, who works at Coinbase, also answered my question, pointing to some interesting statistics.

According to the World Bank, the number of adults globally without a bank account in 2014: 2.5 billion.

The “mobile is eating the world” presentation, from Benedict Evans of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, notes that the number of smartphones worldwide will surpass 4 billion by 2020.

Soon, there will be more smartphones than bank accounts.

With the penetration numbers for smartphones hitting 4/5 of the entire global adult population by 2020, mobile could seriously become bitcoin’s killer app many in the community have been waiting for.

Why would someone need a bank account when they could access bitcoin directly on a smartphone?

This will likely require developing mobile bitcoin platforms as a payment layer so easy to use that many people don’t even realize it. That’s not the case with most mobile bitcoin apps now, but things are progressing.

Jonathan Schroder, a filmmaker, screenwriter, TV producer and ZapChain user, said, “Until we can figure out how to carry bitcoins in our pockets, mobile devices are and will be vital for bitcoin to flourish.”

Bitcoin on mobile isn’t super easy to use today, but it will be. It’s just going to take one creative, risk-taking entrepreneur to make one critical breakthrough.

Just look at all the ways in the above slide mobile enhances everyday interactions. The opportunity for bitcoin on mobile platforms may not just be based on traditional payments, but also for blockchain-based trust and transparency applications.

Already, established technology companies are centering entire business models on mobile. Facebook is one of the most prominent examples of this trend.

There will be bitcoin companies that do this same thing in the very near future.

With all of this opportunity, it seems a no-brainer that the BitPanel would spend January focusing on moving bitcoin mobile platforms forward.

Educating the community why mobile and bitcoin fit so well together is really important, and should be information everyone should have access to.

The BitPanel event on 1/14/15 is free, with food provided by sponsors and features some really awesome panelists:

Christian Anderson, Software Developer, Stripe

Ankur Nandwani, Mobile & Growth, Coinbase

Rob Banagale, CEO, Gliph

Ali Goss, CEO, HelloBit

We’re looking forward to the community engaged and involved in the BitPanel, and going forward for the rest of 2015 and beyond.

Our goal is to create engaging, intelligent, and consistent bitcoin educational content, and we’ll continue working to execute that mission.

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