GAINESVILLE, Ga., Jan. 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Financial forecasting firm Elliott Wave International (EWI) announced today that it now accepts bitcoins as payment, becoming the first major financial publishing firm to accept the popular digital currency. Bitcoin users can now pay for any of EWI's financial forecasting services with the online currency.

EWI was the first financial publisher to discuss the electronic currency, when it was off most people's radar and trading for pennies. Early adopter Elliott Prechter introduced bitcoin to Elliott Wave Theorist readers in September 2010, writing,

"Bitcoins have the necessary features of money: medium of exchange (anonymous and across great distances), unit of account (private), divisibility (up to eight decimal places), scarcity (21 million), portability (transferred electronically), and store of value (current exchange rates – as of August 2010 – show 1 Bitcoin, or BTC, equal to 0.065 USD)."

Since then, bitcoin has risen over 20,000 times in value.

EWI has covered the digital currency several times since then. In August 2012, EWI's president Robert Prechter predicted further surges in value: "Presuming bitcoin succeeds as the world's best currency — and I believe it will — it should rise many more multiples in value over the years," Prechter wrote. It was trading at about $8 at the time.

"Back then we figured digital currencies would be the wave of the future, and now the future has arrived," says Prechter.

EWI is pleased to offer bitcoin as a secure and alternate form of payment to its subscribers. EWI processes bitcoin orders through BitPay, the largest payment processor for virtual currencies.

If you are a bitcoin user and are interested in subscribing to any of EWI's services, visit www.elliottwave.com/wave/bitcoinPR for more information.

About Elliott Wave International

Elliott Wave International, founded in 1979, is the world's largest independent market forecasting firm. EWI specializes in Elliott wave analysis, a form of technical analysis based on crowd psychology and pattern recognition. Based in Gainesville, Ga., EWI is a firm of 100 people, including 24 full-time analysts. EWI covers the world's major markets – stocks, currencies, bonds and commodities – 24 hours a day. For more information, visit http://www.elliottwave.com.

About Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the first completely decentralized, anonymous, electronic currency that can be exchanged across the internet and stored on a disk.

SOURCE Elliott Wave International