Bitcoin celebrated is tenth birthday on Halloween - and in its first decaded of existence has gained tremendous reach and $100b in market value. Despite these achievements, bitcoin has made limited headway on its initial vision of being a fully peer-to-peer payment system (with no centralized authority such as the Fed).
Yet in order to truly take off, some believe that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies need the support of the governments and banks that they seek to bypass. The backing from such institutions is already underway, at least in terms of bitcoin's underlying technology. “Due to trying to take the market share away from one of the most important tools of power – money – central banks and governments all over the world tried to kill bitcoin, albeit unsuccessfully," Angel Versetti, CEO of blockchain firm Ambrosus comments.