Bitcoin for payments: Why critics' view is wrong and will become more so

Critics of Bitcoin often argue that it’s useless as a means of payment, one of the key elements of any successful currency. That’s not quite right, and likely to become less so.
First, a reminder on how Bitcoin works. If I want to send someone some Bitcoin, I simply broadcast my intention to the network. I then wait for the transaction to be picked up by “miners,” who process transactions in return for fees and newly minted Bitcoin. If all goes well, my transaction will be included in a block, which becomes part of the global immutable ledger known as the Bitcoin blockchain. (Disclosure: I own some Bitcoin, because as a blockchain engineer I sometimes receive it as payment.)
Despite complaints about the lack of usability, the network is being used to make a lot of payments. In the last three months of 2017, it processed almost $150 billion in transactions, nearly ten times what it did a year earlier and more than seven times what Western Union moves among consumers in a typical quarter. It’s important to note, though, that the actual number of transactions hasn’t changed -- it’s the average value of each transaction that keeps growing.
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