Despite the constant price crashes, people still seemingly trust crypto over plastic. New data suggests that daily bitcoin transfers are close to overtaking MasterCard’s.
People Don’t Care About Low Prices
Bitcoin has been performing poorly over the past few weeks. Following an extended period of hovering between $6,300 and $6,500, the currency began experiencing regular drops that saw its price fall into the $5,000 and $4,000 ranges, respectively. At press time, Bitcoin is at its lowest point in well over a year and is trading for around $3,900.
But that hasn’t stopped people from using the currency. In fact, it appears daily transfer figures surrounding Bitcoin are comparable to those of credit card giant MasterCard. Recent data from the card’s quarterly report suggests that the company processed over $4.4 trillion in daily transactions throughout 2018, with over $11 billion transferred during the previous 24 hours. Compare these figures with Bitcoin, which stands at roughly $3 trillion for the year and about $8 billion over the past day. Overall, the two financial players are quite close.
How Did Others Rank?
In the distant second and third places are Ethereum and Litecoin, which transferred just over $600 million and $170 million in daily transactions over the past 24 hours. While MasterCard’s quarterly report doesn’t show every cryptocurrency transaction record (i.e. Ripple is prominently missing from the document), it is estimated that all virtual currencies combined likely account for the same or more daily transactions as MasterCard, though this is likely because some currencies are worth more than a single dollar (USD).
In addition, Visa’s data suggests it processes more than twice as many transactions as MasterCard with roughly $30 billion in transactions each day and over $11 trillion per year. Visa is presently capable of processing over 65,000 transactions per second.
Bitcoin – It’s Stronger Than It Looks
At press time, it’s unclear why so many bitcoin transactions took place at once, though it’s estimated that all Bitcoin exchanges contributed to the final tally. Furthermore, it is also believed that bitcoin transactions may account for larger amounts than credit cards, which are usually designed to handle small transactions. The median value of a bitcoin transfer is typically around $400.
However, it is also estimated that far more Bitcoin activity likely occurs off-chain. The report suggests that this figure must be quite heavy if $8 billion is what’s recorded, and thus bitcoin transfer activity may have secretly surpassed companies like MasterCard.
Do you use crypto more than you do credit cards? Why or why not? Post your comments below.
Image courtesy of ShutterStock