Crypto Prophecy: the Economist's Date Arrives as Bitcoin Prices Stagnates

Wednesday October 10, 2018, has been reached - this is the date that The Economist reveals we stand "ready for a new global currency." Should Bitcoin without warning satisfy that role right now?

October 10 marks a debatably great date in Bitcoin's history - but as of now, nothing seems any different. 

A 'New Global Currency' by 2018 

Per the now-unpopular cover of The Economist 3 decades ago in 1988, Wednesday's watershed period should imply the globe's occupants are carrying out transactions in the same universal currency. 

“Thirty years from now, Americans, Japanese, Europeans, and people in many other rich countries, and some relatively poor ones will probably be paying for their shopping with the same currency,” the accompanying article reads. 

The cover art portrays a phoenix surrounding a coin with the figures 10 and 2018 inscribed in it. Below it, the dollar burns. 

Several speculators have for ages marvelled whether the hinted at deadline, Wednesday, October 10, means a significant change could still happen. 

The deadline has been reached, and the globe is, in fact, transacting in one currency of choice, and in this case, it's Bitcoin, though in small numbers. 

Prophecy or Just Useless? 

According to the article, The Economist seems to have expected a lot more progress to have been made by this point than what has happened in the real world. 

“Prices will be quoted not in dollars, yen or D-marks but in, let’s say, the phoenix,” it continued. “The phoenix will be favoured by companies and shoppers because it will be more convenient than today’s national currencies, which by then will seem a quaint cause of much disruption to economic life in the last twentieth century.”

A particle of truth can certainly be noticed in some of the publication's forecasts, but as Wednesday of this week went on, Bitcoin markets seemed under-prepared for widespread movement.