CoinDesk's 2016 Report Suggests Bitcoin Isn't Dead Yet

While much of the press about bitcoin has been relatively negative over the past year, CoinDesk's State of Bitcoin and Blockchain 2016 report shows that the cryptocurrency may not be as beaten down as many believed. The report, published on January 28, showed that despite a negative image in the media, bitcoin was gaining new users and that the technology has a lot of potential in the coming year. New Users While the majority of the public remains cautious about using bitcoin, the cryptocurrency has seen a marked increase in users. The number of bitcoin wallets created over the past year has doubled and daily bitcoin transactions have risen by 50 percent. The figures don't suggest that the cryptocurrency is going to reach widespread adoption imminently, but they are a promising sign that the currency is making slow and steady progress. Mining Pools Consolidate CoinDesk's report also showed that bitcoin miners had begun to consolidate leaving only a few pools to do the majority of the processing to uncover new bitcoins. This development has been troublesome to some bitcoin supporters, who say that the cryptocurrency's decentralized nature is threatened by consolidation in the mining industry as it puts the power into large firms' hands. Blockchain Troubles Ahead As bitcoin is growing in popularity, there has been a debate among supporters as to how to move forward with the growing number of transactions. Blockchain can only process between three and seven transactions per second, something that will need to change if the currency is ever to reach widespread adoption. However, the bitcoin community has struggled with how to solve this problem with some calling for increased block sizes and others saying it would be better to optimize the coin itself. In any case, many expect 2016 to be a big year in which the two sides come to a final recommendation that the entire industry can abide by.