Bitcoin survived a tumultuous 2014; it is on the verge of turning a terrible start to 2015 into one of the best reversals, and it only gets better. According to a bargainfox report, Bitcoin will remain unstoppable in 2016, and the trend is only expected to pick up.
BargainFox is a UK-based coupon code website, which indicated an increase in searches for merchants who accept Bitcoin payments. The report highlighted 33 indicators, some of which have been discussed below.
- Rapid Growth of Bitcoin Exchanges – Exchanges such as OKCoin, BTCChina, huobi.com, and Bitstamp have registered phenomenal growth of 847%, 563%, 280%, and 160% respectively.
- Daily Transactions Values – Bitcoin has surpassed payments giant Western Union in daily transaction value. While total Bitcoin transactions totaled $289M, Western Union lagged with a total of $216M.
- Growth of Bitcoin Overshadows Paypal – According to the infographic (from the report) presented below, the number of active registered users on Paypal grew from 123 million in 2012 to 173 million in 2015. During the same period, the number of wallets on Blockchain.info increased from 13,000 to 3 million, while those on Coinbase jumped from 13,000 to 2.5 million.
- Bitcoin Crosses Boundaries – In 2015, five new nations—Barbados, France, Kenya, Philippines, and Switzerland—welcomed their first Bitcoin VC investment.
- Merchant List Grows – Prominent merchants including Trees, Famsa.com, and Purse started accepting Bitcoin payments in 2015.
- Leading Bitcoin Buyers – China, the USA, Europe, Brazil, and India emerge as the biggest buyers of the cryptocurrency, with China leading the pack with 8/10 transactions in yuan.
The report also touches upon the events that have been setbacks for the cryptocurrency. These included the BitLicense regulations, banning of Bitcoin in Taiwan, banning of related websites in Russia, and banning of similar accounts in China.
But as the year comes to a close, the cryptocurrency has overcome all the hurdles to become one of the best performing currencies in the world. And we expect the momentum to only gain steam in 2016!