Taking a break from all the chaotic goings-on at HP Discover in Barcelona this week, theCUBE hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante of Wikibon sat down with SiliconANGLE’s founding editor Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins yesterday to discuss one of the most disruptive trends in tech – Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that’s threatening to take the world of ecommerce by storm.

The discussion began with the most fundamental question – just how relevant is Bitcoin today, and what kind of future does it have in store?

Furrier stated he believes that Bitcoin is extremely relevant, noting that online behavior is shifting with a new generation of consumers all possessing mobile devices. As a result of this, new payment methods are emerging, just as services like PayPal emerged when ecommerce first took off.

“Bitcoin is the same as PayPal was in its early days,” said Furrier. “Its still small relative to the global currency, but it does have momentum, it does have legs, actual transactions are being done, but [the question is] can it become a new currency for a new online culture of users?”

Hopkins believes that the answer is yes it can, and it probably will, because Bitcoin has already surpassed PayPal in terms of daily transaction volume.

“Paypal and Bitcoin are now vying neck and neck, for actual purchases made online,” added Hopkins. “Tesla just started accepted Bitcoin last week, as did the Long Beach Lamborghini dealership, these are all noteworthy car dealerships. There’s been several houses bought with Bitcoin, and it’s very popular on the street with coffee shops and bars in Dallas now accepting it. It’s also very common in Venezeula.”

So Bitcoin is rapidly becoming more widely accepted, and it’s not just because of the ‘hype’ around cryptocurrencies at the moment – there’s also a belief that Bitcoin is well on its way to become a viable currency, or commodity, that’s only going to become even more valuable as time goes on.

To reiterate this, Hopkins claimed that he’d even be prepared to receive a salary in Bitcoin rather than US dollars.

“I’d accept payment in Bitcoin. It’s better than holding my savings in dollars, because dollars go down in value over time, while the price of Bitcoin just goes up,” insisted Hopkins.

Although cautious, Furrier admitted that he too would probably accept BTC.

“I’d consider getting paid in Bitcoin. I’m an early adopter, so I would probably take the chance,” he said. “But I would worry about it, because what I’m afraid of is what if the value drops? The fluctuations concern me, so to me the stability of BTC is a relative factor.”

Bitcoin – a new ‘fabric of culture’

Asked to explain his optimism, Furrier outlined a number of reasons why he believed that Bitcoin’s future is so bright.

“The thing about Bitcoin is that it’s so disruptive,” he stated. “Massively online environments are the future of collaborative environments. When you see that kind of environment where people are using always connected devices, I think a new fabric of culture will appear, with new expectations from users, and one of those will be some sort of online currency model like Bitcoin.”

Furrier explained his belief that there will be a whole new social fabric constructed around what’s going on with consumers, real-time, analytics and big data, and this will create new applications, new real-time benefits, and with it the need for a new ecommerce component.

“The ecommerce component will be disrupted, and Bitcoin has greater momentum than all other cryptocurrencies, and so I would bet on it. I’m bullish on Bitcoin,” stated Furrier.