This article is penned by Marcie Terman, the Founding Director of First Global Credit, a UK-based Bitcoin margin trading company.

Greetings traders and friends,

2016 has been a great year for those of us holding bitcoins. You can use bitcoin in more places, they have more purchasing power and you can now use bitcoins to grow your portfolio in many more ways. As an example, you can buy twice as much company stock with bitcoin today than you could with your bitcoins in January of this year.

Who would have thought 12 months ago we’d be looking at bitcoin valued over 900USD today? 2016 has been a big year for bitcoin, First Global and also for a lot of you. We have welcomed over a dozen new traders to the Elite Trading Group. Equity, futures and currency trading on the website has increased by 350% and the number of you using our services to build wealth has gone up by a similar number.

2016 was a year with periods of extreme volatility and that always means opportunities. The crypto-hacks this summer caused a momentary loss of confidence in bitcoin that meant after a brief correction there was an opportunity to go long and now the price of bitcoin is reaching highs we have not seen since 2014! However, the market has moved forward substantially since then. The 2014 highs were insubstantial; lacking solidity whereas now the bitcoin capital market is being recognised around the globe. We are still in the early days of acceptance, but there are pockets in the world where cryptocurrencies are being heralded as a reasonable alternative to fiat currencies whose guardianship is being managed by governments strangled by debt. This renders them a poor choice as a long term store of personal wealth. Dare I suggest that the Trump election caused a loss of confidence in the dollar and people using bitcoin as a flight to quality? It’s an exciting thought. And from my position here in London I can see from communications with my customers around the world that there are growing pockets of acceptance for cryptocurrency in Latin America, certain regions in Asia and now in Africa.

This backs up the views of our Chief Executive Gavin Smith who has been speaking in conferences across Europe and America talking about how people in the developing world are seeing bitcoin as a way to decrease the distance between countries, accessing the wealth available elsewhere in the world. Now, ordinary people in Turkey, Nigeria, Kenya, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Venezuela, Bali, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, The Philippines, Singapore, Pakistan and the Ukraine are using First Global Credit and bitcoin to access the profit opportunities in the US and UK stock markets. This has never been possible before and we are seeing knowledge of this opportunity spreading as people tell others in their region about the experience of working with us. This is also exciting.

2017 is going to be even more important for First Global Credit and our clients as we work hard to bring new services to market that will give you other ways to grow your bitcoin portfolio. Always making sure that your experience of working with us is one where you are trading in the most secure environment. And where we continue to support you with outstanding customer service and a high degree of integrity.

Up until now First Global have been using the conventional markets as a way to serve our digital currency customers. The world was in transition and our services were designed to provide a bridge to the best opportunities for profit while everyone else caught up with us ‘early adopters.’ Well the world has moved on since we started First Global Credit and we now believe it is time to leverage off our success and start to release new services that will allow you to benefit in ways inaccessible to other traders. Some of these changes will be small and subtle. Others will herald a real paradigm shift. But with all of our new services we will strive to keep the level of customer support high, working hard to show our clients that there can be a company with transparency and integrity operating in the cryptocurrency space. In fact, that is the only way that is really possible to move forward. If in 2017, people realize they do not have to do business with trading companies that they fear will disappear at some unknown point in the future with their assets. That they can have flexibility and opportunity and integrity all in one investment company.

This is what we are striving to build with First Global Credit.

We appreciate your trust in us and we will always be there to make this a successful trading environment for you.