Some tech & finance influencers, as well as a few crypto pundits, claim that “Bitcoin is dead” and is not capable of changing the global market. Is that true, or they underestimate the world’s biggest cryptocurrency? Let’s find this out.

First and foremost, we should start with the analysis of Bitcoin prices. On this all-time price chart, we can see how profitable the coin is. With ROI of almost 6,000%, Bitcoin has become one of the most successful cryptocurrencies in terms of investment profitability.

BTC all-time price chart

2019 was a very successful year for BTC. In January, its price was around $3,500 level, but on 26 of June, Bitcoin reached the $13,000 level (the highest rate in the past year and a half). After takeoff at the end of 2017 when BTC made the record-breaking growth to $19K, the exchange rate was declining and remained at $3,000 for a few months. The share of Bitcoins in the cryptocurrency market has also increased – it accounts for about 60% of the market capitalization, although 8 months ago it was almost half as much. This means that Bitcoin is bought more often than other cryptocurrencies.

The last rally from $3,200 to $13,000 is a direct indication that there is demand for the asset. But what exactly contributed to the asset’s growth?

First of all, the Bitcoin infrastructure is getting closer and closer to perfection: legal exchanges are being created, and Bitcoin futures are very likely to be affirmed by SEC sooner or later. Secondly, large crypto market players with large capitals did not disappear but continued to gain long-term positions. Third, the adoption rate is gaining traction. BTC is being gradually introduced as a regular means of payment. Just look around: developed countries sell goods and services for crypto, and the number of stores accepting BTC transfers is constantly growing.

It’s hard to call Bitcoin dead when we see so much growth and development on the crypto scene.

Bitcoin Death Predictions by Year

Despite anything, some people refuse to believe in Bitcoin’s potential and predict that the cryptocurrency value is worth zero. Since the moment Bitcoin appeared, haters kept saying “Bitcoin and crypto is dead” year from year.

New Bitcoin Obituary by Peter Schiff – hey CT – Bitcoin is Dead 10/19/19. RIP BTC 🙀 https://t.co/bdi82iYWso — Jason A. Williams 🚀 (@GoingParabolic) October 19, 2019

On this page, you can see the full list of Bitcoin eulogies made by various journalists and social influencers. So far, none of those predictions materialized.

2010 – Bitcoin can’t be a currency

“Negative feedback loops like this are basically homeostasis. In nature, positive feedback loops like exist with Bitcoin are lethal; the only thing that’s even kept Bitcoin alive this long is its novelty. Either it will remain a novelty forever or it will transition from novelty status to dead faster than you can blink.” – The Underground Economist

2011 – Why Bitcoin will fail?

“Like the gold standard, a successful Bitcoin would send our economy back into the dark ages. . . . Even if it became popular, governments would squash it because of #1 and because they like being in power. . . . With Bitcoin, a single failure of the cryptosystem could result in an utter collapse of the entire financial network.” – Apenwarr

2013 – Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

“The developers of bitcoin are trying to show that money can be successfully privatized. They will fail, because money that is not issued by governments is always doomed to failure. . . . Bitcoin, or something like it, will thrive until the authorities do better.” – The New York Times

2016 – 1,000 Bitcoin Wallets Won’t Replace One Financial Revolution

“At this point in the bitcoin lifecycle, the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) and naysaying we’ve been hearing is mostly true. The network is abysmally slow. The use cases are half-baked and consumers will receive no implicit benefit from bitcoin over, say, swiping their Visa card.The bitcoin 1.0 experiment is, in short, over.” – Coindesk

2018 – No Investment Strategies Are Worse Than Cryptocurrencies

“The simple truth is that there are virtually no investment strategies that are worse ideas than cryptocurrencies. “Investing” in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is pure, unadulterated speculation. I put investing in parentheses because this is not investing, it is speculating. Cryptocurrencies are the “Tulipmania” of the 21st century” – Robert R. Johnson

Is cryptocurrency dead?

By the way, Bitcoin was not the best performing cryptocurrency in 2019. From January to June 2019, the biggest growth was recorded among such coins as Binance Coin (+488%), Holo (+376%) and Ravencoin (+308%). Litecoin (267%), Bitcoin Cash (171%) and Ether (98%) also gained in price.

The market cap of major cryptocurrencies also increased:

Litecoin market cap 2018-2019

Ethereum market cap 2018-2019

Binance Coin market cap 2018-2019

Thus, a lot of altcoins managed to rise in price and market cap with some multiplying their cost by several times.

Dead Altcoins

In 2018, CNBC reported that about 800 cryptocurrencies appearing after the initial coin offering (ICO) can now be called “dead”, as they are traded at prices below $0.01. In 2019, this figure increased,

According to analytical resources specializing in “dead” cryptocurrencies, such as Deadcoins and Coinopsy, about 1000 different cryptocurrencies collapsed in 2018. Many of the “dead” crypto projects turned out to be fraudulent schemes disguised as ICO, and some simply could not withstand the pressure of the bear market at the end of 2018.

The most popular dead coins are Bitconnect, XEM, Bitcoin Diamond, Universa, and Emercoin. You can check the list of dead coins here and here.

Why do coins and crypto projects behind them die?

Over 80% of coins appear to be a scam and cease existence once the founders raise money. Teams lack expertise or funds to develop and promote their projects. Some projects simply don’t withstand the pressure – the competition on the crypto market is high. Joke coins are usually doomed to fail (Dogecoin is an exception from the rule). Some coins are simply abandoned by their creators.

Bitcoin Market Influence

According to CoinMarketCap, the current Bitcoin dominance is 66.5%. In summer 2019, it managed to spike to 90% level. It’s possible that BTC dominance will return to the 50-60% range by the end of 2019. BTC dominance was below 60% for a long period (from May 2017 to June 2019).

Many well-known crypto analysts claim that altcoins will not be able to recover from such a dramatic fall (which in BTC is even stronger than in USD) by the of this year. At the same time, Binance Research analysts say that in the short term, Bitcoin is likely to maintain 70% dominance in the crypto market.

Here’s one more authoritative opinion about the short-term future of Bitcoin:

We expect S&P 500 to break to the upside soon and this would enable #bitcoin to breakout as well.



– while many expect a recession, US has been stubbornly resistant.



– $BTC oversold and sentiment cooled off (good thing)



cc: @mdudas @TheBlock__ @mdudas @fintechfrank @_RJTodd https://t.co/egzIzmnaQO — Thomas Lee (@fundstrat) October 9, 2019

Bitcoin Network & Market Statistics

If you still doubt the power and potential of Bitcoin, check the BTC market statistics:

Bitcoin market statistics

The trading volume of BTC is enormous and continues growing.

BTC transactions per day (2019 vs 2018)

The number of BTC transactions per day has also grown in 2019. For instance, in October 2019, about 300-345K transactions were performed every day.

BTC number of transactions

In October 2018, the volume of BTC daily transactions was about 266,000. Thus, the number of daily BTC transactions has increased by ~30%.

Total amount of active Bitcoin wallets

An interesting fact: the total amount of active Bitcoin wallets has decreased since 2018. In January 2018, the number of active BTC wallets outnumbered 1 mln, but as the famous bullish period ended, this number subsided.

In 2019, the number of active BTC wallets varied from 560K to 850K.

Lightning Network & off-chain transactions growth

The Lightning Network is considered one of the most promising second-tier solutions for the Bitcoin network. In particular, it should help to cope with the problem of scaling and transaction speed to increase the number of mass payments by Bitcoin.

The Lightning Network is growing rapidly and continued to evolve even the recent “crypto-winter”. From November 2018 to April 2019, the number of users has increased from 12,500 to over 44,000. The capacity of the network has grown 7-fold, to almost 1065 BTC. This indicates that the payment activity in the Lightning Network is really increasing.

The number of altcoin transactions has also generally increased since 2018:

BCH – from 42K to 72K transactions daily;

ETH – from 690K to 960K transactions daily;

LTC – from 30K to 34K transactions daily;

XRP – from 3.7K to 5.6K transactions daily.

Bitcoin Inflation & Deflation Rates

The current Bitcoin inflation rate is 0.01%. The highest rate was in January 2014 when it reached 0.038%, and a record low of 0.009% was in December 2018. Thus, the BTC inflation rate is 150-160 times lower than the inflation rate of the biggest national fiat assets (USD, EUR, YEN).

Since the total supply of Bitcoin is limited by 21 mln BTC, this coin should grow in price thanks to deflation. Several analysts, including Max Keiser from RT, Harvard Academician Dennis Porto and Kay Van Petersen (Senior Analyst at Saxo Bank), have proven that Bitcoin price will exceed $100,000 over the next ten years. For Bitcoin to reach $100,000, its market capitalization had to exceed $2.1 trillion.

Currently, many investors and traders consider Bitcoin to be a safe asset. Bitcoin develops as a technology and turns into a reliable financial network, so it will soon compete with reserve currencies, existing banking systems and traditional assets, such as gold.

So, Is Bitcoin Finally Dead in 2019?

As they say, ‘Haters gonna hate’. Some people will continue talking about Bitcoin’s future failures even despite arguments and statistics

Bitcoin has been pronounced dead so many times now pic.twitter.com/FefdNP6whD — CryptoManiaks (@CryptoManiaks) October 20, 2019

Bitcoin is dead. Ether will consume all. — Ether Man (@ether_man_) October 22, 2019

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥because nobody needs Bitcoin it’s a Chinese Bubble and if the mining ⛏ farms shutdown Bitcoin is dead 💀 pic.twitter.com/M9XFrSsO26 — The Witcher Ⓥ (@JimBob200) October 21, 2019

Source: reddit

But so far, there was no clear evidence that Bitcoin bubble is going to burst. The cryptocurrency is thriving, so are the holders and traders.

Bottom Line

Just like any genius idea, Bitcoin will always have enemies and opponents among particular individuals and the whole countries. BTC holders themselves love spreading rumors about Bitcoin failures to provoke major BTC selloffs.

Be that as it may, Bitcoin stays one of the most perspective financial projects of 21st century, and promises to rock the global financial market in the upcoming years.