- A new study by the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase shows that 27 million people in the United States own Bitcoin.
- The adaptation of Bitcoin continues to progress worldwide, with the USA playing a pioneering role.
The adaptation and acceptance of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies contributes significantly to its use in people’s everyday lives. Especially the value of trust plays an important role. Facebook’s own digital currency Libra has a confidence problem, so that politicians and the population have great skepticism. Meanwhile, trust in Bitcoin continues to grow and is becoming increasingly important in everyday life.
27 million people in the USA own Bitcoin
A few days ago, the American Bitcoin exchange Coinbase published a new report showing the distribution of Bitcoin in the USA. The report states that few technologies in such a short time, 11 years, have attracted as much attention and attention as Bitcoin. In 1972 email was invented and it took until 1997, when a total of 10 million people used this new service.
Bitcoin in comparison took less than 10 years to reach more people in the USA alone:
Bitcoin, on the other hand, went from an idea in 2008, and a first transaction in 2009, to an estimated over 27 million users in the US alone in 2019, or 9% of Americans.
The following graph shows the locations of the existing Bitcoin Nodes around the world and their evolution over time. Especially Europe and Asia can be regarded as “conurbations”.
Coinbase.com
On 24.09.2019, 820,000 unique Bitcoin addresses were counted in the network, and the trend continues to rise. Google Trends also clearly shows that interest in Bitcoin is growing faster and is even displacing search queries such as “royal wedding” or “election results”. In 2009, Austria showed the greatest interest in Bitcoin, followed by Kazakhstan (2010), Estonia (2011), Finland (2012), Ghana (2015), Nigeria (2016) and South Africa (2017).
Furthermore, a new survey has shown that Bitcoin has achieved a higher return over the last 10 years than the world’s most important stock index, the S&P500. Bitcoin achieved a return of 132%. This compares: Nasdaq 100 +17%, S&P 500 +12%, FTSE Europe 100 +11% and FTSE ASEAN 40 -3%. The following chart compares the respective yield trends.
Source: Coinbase.com
As we have already reported, Bitcoin is particularly in demand in countries where economic conditions are difficult and the national currency is suffering greatly from inflation. A current example is Venezuela, which is suffering severely from the sanctions imposed by the United States of America. Bitcoin is regarded as a potential value store and anchor in times of crisis. The following chart shows the demand for Bitcoin in Venezuela, Argentina and Hong Kong.
Source: Coinbase.com
It is also worth mentioning that sending Bitcoin is 60 times more cost effective and 48 times faster than traditional bank transfers. The following graph illustrates this comparison.
Source: Coinbase.com
The advantage of Bitcoin over traditional bank transfers is more than unambiguous:
Compared to the legacy financial system, Bitcoin fees and transaction time are minimal. Sending an international wire transfer by major US banks costs around $45, can take days to process, and can be done only during banking hours. Bitcoin transactions, on the other hand, typically cost around $0.75,⁸ can be done 24/7, are instantly seen on the network, and are widely regarded as secure after confirmation of six blocks, which happens in about one hour.
The interest in Bitcoin increases daily. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether Bitcoin will be able to prove itself to banks and other financial institutions in the long term.
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Bitcoin’s price has recorded a minimal increase (+0.62%) to USD 9,237.04 in the last 24 hours.
