The years between 2014-21 witnessed an exponential growth in the cryptocurrency market globally. The strong growth in the market can be accredited to increasing digitization across industries. In addition to this, easy accessibility and increasing penetration of high-speed internet in our day-to-day lives is also facilitating the adoption of the cryptocurrency. The market growth is also greatly driven by the legalisation and regulation of sale, purchase and trading of these digital currencies in several developed countries.

The level of transparency offered by the blockchain technology leaves minimal scope of any fraudulent or unwanted transactions caused by human or machine error or by manipulation of data. All the parties involved in the transaction can view any alterations made during the transaction in real-time. This offers added data security and immutability of the transactions.

Moreover, the convenience offered by online trading platforms which can be accessed by anyone with a smartphone is also a major reason behind the huge growth that the market is witnessing. There are other elements involved as well including expanding market capitalisation or market cap of the industry in addition to introduction of bitcoin cash and bitcoin lite that are expected to further drive the growth of the market. It is expected that the coming five years will witness a greater growth of this distributed ledger technology.

The growing price of Bitcoin is also indicative of this growth in the market. This can be a result of many individuals around the world losing their jobs due to the quarantine being followed globally. More and more people started investing in cryptocurrency as a means of side income. In the backdrop of lesser jobs in the traditional market space, newer professions in the crypto space were introduced. These included crypto traders, technical analysts, or crypto influencers. Those investing in crypto also urged and helped their family and friends to invest in the virtual currency as a means of additional income.

The growth in Bitcoin prices further instilled a positive outlook towards the currency causing more investors to enter the market. Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high of more than $63,000 on 13 April 2021, as investors awaited the highly-anticipated stock market debut of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.

Another reason contributing to the growing market is that many countries increased their money printing during the pandemic that caused inflation. The stock market was also very unstable as the businesses on which the stock market depends have also been affected by the global pandemic. People moved their money from stocks to investing in deflationary assets like gold and bitcoin. Since Bitcoin’s supply is limited, it can be perceived as a store of value.

People around the world have started looking at Bitcoin in a more positive light. Many investors who bought Bitcoin at a higher price in 2017 and held it have become active again as a result of this price surge. Usually, 60-70 percent of investors investing in bitcoin hold it as a long term investment. A comparatively smaller number of investors hold it as a medium term investment and an even smaller percentage of people hold bitcoin as a short term investment.