Ten years ago, bitcoin was largely written off as a volatile digital experiment. Today, it is a trillion-dollar asset with exchange-traded funds, institutional trading desks, corporate treasury holdings and millions of everyday investors around the world.

A Long Road to Legitimacy

During the past decade, this open-source digital currency has undergone one of the most dramatic image reversals in modern finance history, but its evolution didn’t happen overnight. Instead, the shift began modestly in the mid-2010s as regulators first attempted to define what, exactly, bitcoin was. Early enforcement actions and piecemeal guidance created uncertainty, but they also signaled that governments were taking the asset seriously.

Over time, clearer frameworks emerged as countries established rules for digital asset exchanges, custody providers and anti-money-laundering compliance. In the United States, the path to broader adoption opened slowly through futures markets, with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approving bitcoin futures in 2017. These steps brought bitcoin into the perimeter of regulated financial activity, allowing institutions to engage without entering a legal gray zone.

Persistent Misconceptions

Some of the biggest misconceptions of bitcoin that have endured, to some degree, are that it’s a scam, that it’s a digital currency not backed by anything of value, that it’s often used by criminals for nefarious activities, or that it’s harmful to the environment.

However, according to New York attorney Zach Shapiro, who is also head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, these claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

“I think we’ve seen a shift in people’s understanding of bitcoin, that there are fundamental attributes of bitcoin that make it valuable,” Shapiro said. “And I think that idea has been most mainstream since the introduction of bitcoin ETFs at the beginning of 2024.”

ETFs and a Turning Point

These ETFs gave everyday investors the ability to gain exposure through familiar brokerage accounts, bypassing private keys and digital wallets. Billions of dollars flowed into these products within weeks. Suddenly, bitcoin was no longer something one had to “learn crypto” to own; it became an accessible allocation in a diversified portfolio, alongside equities, bonds and commodities.

“I think the approval of bitcoin ETFs forced Wall Street to do more of its homework on bitcoin, and that really catalyzed a big change,” Shapiro said. “I’ve just seen it in my personal life; it’s more common for people to own bitcoin now who are not in this world.”

A Cultural Shift Takes Hold

Perhaps the most underestimated shift over the past decade has been cultural. In the early years, bitcoin’s narrative was dominated by fringe communities and utopian visions of dismantling global finance. Today, the discourse is far more diverse. Bitcoin appeals to retail investors seeking inflation protection, technologists interested in decentralized systems, institutions pursuing uncorrelated assets and even governments exploring digital reserve diversification. Its cultural footprint has expanded from niche forums to mainstream newsrooms, investment committees and policy debates.

Across markets, scarce assets from gold to Pokémon cards have surged in value, widening the gap between people who own assets and those whose wealth is tied solely to wages that lose purchasing power each year. This imbalance has seeped into the cultural mood, fueling frustration over everything from unaffordable housing to stalled economic mobility. Homes, once a primary savings vehicle, are now treated as stores of value as fiat currencies depreciate, pushing millennials and younger buyers further out of the market.

The result is a generation increasingly convinced something in the monetary system is broken, a sentiment that shows up in political polarization, speculative gambling and the search for alternatives.

Scarcity, Access and the Search for Alternatives

For many, the appeal of a currency insulated from government manipulation has become part of a broader response to these socioeconomic pressures. According to Shapiro, that dynamic is driving people toward bitcoin. Bitcoin is a resource genuinely not controlled by anyone, that it is perfectly scarce because only 21 million bitcoin will ever exist, and that anyone with a smartphone anywhere in the world can access it. These factors make it a universally appealing commodity.

“You get treated the same if you have one dollar’s worth of bitcoin as if you have $1 billion worth of bitcoin. It’s incredibly fair and inclusive,” Shapiro said. “I really think it is a ricochet effect: the fiat money era causing societal problems, and people looking for answers to that turning to bitcoin as one potential, or at least partial, solution.”

From Volatility to Viability

The last decade proved bitcoin’s greatest achievement went beyond surviving into evolving. As adoption broadens and infrastructure strengthens, its next chapter may be defined less by speculation and more by integration.

“I think the number one thing that’s going to drive acceptance is people taking a look at bitcoin,” Shapiro said. “The bigger answer for the global financial system is very conservative in some ways. It moves slowly, and these things take time. I think bitcoin will inevitably be further woven into the financial architecture around the world. It’s just going to take understanding, adoption and proliferation.”

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Bitcoin’s Unexpected Rise From Margins to Markets