2021 marked the twelfth year of bitcoin’s “official” existence, and after last year’s halving the year started and (mostly) continued on a bullish note as many, myself included, expected bitcoin to breach the $100,000 and set crazy new highs. That was not the case, but bitcoin did have a huge year and at times it feels like we’ve become desensitised to major developments in the market.
2021: The Year Bitcoin Went Mainstream
Despite the great strides made by bitcoin, its developers and die-hard users over the last 12 years, 2021 was the year bitcoin really went mainstream. The most important event that cemented bitcoin’s staying power and investability as an asset was of course El Salvador becoming the first nation to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, fully embracing the digital asset as their own.
When 2021 started, no one would have expected an entire country to embrace bitcoin with open arms, let alone embrace it as legal tender, launching a dedicated mobile wallet that a majority of their citizens use or invest in their own bitcoin reserve. Looking back, it was a major move that should have had a much wider impact on bitcoin adoption worldwide, as well as an increase in its price.
Besides that, we’ve seen major politicians across the U.S. come out as pro-bitcoin, even going as far as to accepting either their entire or part of their salaries in bitcoin. We’d been used to athletes doing so, but 2021 really kicked off politicians’ open interest in bitcoin, with Miami Mayor, Francis Suarez, and Senator Cynthia Lummis grabbing most of the headlines. But there were many, many others that followed in their footsteps.
Then there were corporations openly embracing bitcoin as a hedge against the instability fiat has brought on, especially during the economic fallout of the
