ICE head Jeffrey Sprecher says Bitcoin "might" become digital gold

The Intercontinental Cheif Executive said Bitcoin might become digital gold but first it needs to be used more in everyday business.

Bakkt and ICE recently announce an app which will let you pay for your coffee at Starbucks but at the moment it is a pilot scheme.

Sprecher went on to say:

Because I’m old I think of [how] gold became a store of value because at one point it was a currency,” he said. “We had gold coins, it was in circulation, and over time because of the nature of its ability to spend, … it became a store of value and today, you know, in a crisis we all accept gold as a form of payment

Leading into the potential future of Bitcoin the ICE chief stated:

We don’t think that that that whole space will be relevant and and grow unless there are real use cases and we do … think that a use case is going to be the digital transfer of value through payments

It may well be that, rather than convert bitcoin to fiat currency and then use [that] fiat currency to buy goods and services, merchants and users will accept bitcoin directly

There are already some companies that provide this service but the fees are quite high. In some cases too high for the potential to be realised.

Lastly, in regards to upcoming projects Sprecher said:

We develop our own settlement price and so that lends itself very nicely to an options market where people that trade options and hedge with the underlying can have perfect hedging in one venue that they know is transparent - So that was the pressure to get the options out quickly