Bitcoin (BTC) network processed more than $3 trillion in annual payment transactions last year surpassing even that from leading credit card networks such as American Express ($1.3 trillion) and Discover ($0.5 trillion), according to a report from investment from NYDIG. “This is astonishing growth, in our opinion, for a payment network that just had its 13th birthday,” the researchers wrote. American Express issued its first card in 1958, and Discover in 1985. Bitcoin network, however, still has a way to go before catching up to payment giants such as Visa and Mastercard, which processed $13.5 trillion and $7.7 trillion in transactions, respectively. However, in Q1 2021 alone, Bitcoin network had settled $20.2 trillion transactions larger than Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover combined for the entire year. The crypto network is now ranked at third in transaction volume. While the transaction volume was not always even year-to-year but has “kept up at a torrid pace when looking at 5-year compound annual growth rates.” At the end of last year, transaction volumes have grown by nearly 100% annually over the past 5 years. Measuring Bitcoin Transaction Volumes The study only looked at the USD value of transaction volume rather than the actual number of transactions. Hence, it’s likely that most of the Bitcoin transactions were simply users purchasing, swapping and selling their BTC rather than using it to pay for any...
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