Opportunities and business models in the Bitcoin ecosystem: from technology to real-world applications.

After more than fifteen years of network activity, the ecosystem developed around Bitcoin has become increasingly complex, creating various business models related to the functioning of this new monetary system. Just as the banking system, during its over 500 years of history, has employed ever-increasing percentages of the population, the Bitcoin industry will employ many people in the future and will create a varied supply chain to satisfy every kind of need connected to it.

One can imagine the Bitcoin protocol as the trunk of a tree, whose roots obtain nourishment from the earth, which represents the capital market as a whole. As the years pass, the trunk thickens, adding higher-level protocols, and generates branches. Each branch represents a sector (e.g., mining, exchange, etc.), continuously expanding to capture more and more light, which represents the retail market, and its growth brings benefit to the entire tree. Branches and leaves fall as they have completed their life cycle, have not proven strong enough to withstand a storm, or light has been stolen by new branches, continuing to enrich the soil.

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