Cryptocurrencies have become increasingly popular over the past few years, with the likes of Bitcoin becoming household names across most countries. However, aside from knowing roughly what Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are, many people don’t know too much about them.
This is made even worse if you’re considering investing in cryptocurrency; because of that, you’ll need to know about some of the key cryptocurrency statistics over the past few years. As we’ve already mentioned, Bitcoin is the most well known, and it’s easy to see why; over the past few years, it’s become the most popular, and because of that it’s become extremely expensive.
As it currently stands, not only has this popularity helped drive up the price compared to other cryptocurrencies, but a single Bitcoin is currently worth almost $3,900, which is miles ahead of the likes of Litecoin. Having said that, the value of many cryptocurrencies can fluctuate wildly, and this is especially true with Bitcoin.
To take a further look at how much the price of cryptocurrencies can fluctuate, it’s worth taking an even more focused look at Bitcoin. Over the course of 2017, the price of Bitcoin increased by 2,000%, going from $953 to $20,089. However, as we’ve already mentioned above, it’s currently worth only about a fifth of that.
Because of that, investing in Bitcoin, or any cryptocurrency, can be a bit of a risky investment; according to the same study, about 32% of British people who know a lot about cryptocurrency won’t invest in it, due to the fact that they believe investing in any cryptocurrency is too much of a risk.
Having said that, the rise of cryptocurrency shows no signs of slowing down; while investment in cryptocurrency initially began around the 2012 mark, it’s only been since 2016 that we’ve seen major growth in the cryptocurrency industry. For example, the industry has seen a major upturn in the amount of daily active users using Bitcoin on a daily basis.
Throughout 2012 and 2013, it would have been rare to see more than a few thousand people using cryptocurrency networks on a daily basis. That’s the complete opposite of what we’re seeing now, with a report showing that in early 2018, the average amount of daily active users regularly exceeded 1.1 million.
That being said, though, this is across all cryptocurrencies, and isn’t specific to any particular one; on the contrary, the studies focused on the amount of people who were using their crypto-wallets on a daily basis, which can hold many different cryptocurrencies.
Those who were initially investing in cryptocurrencies in the beginning were mainly Chinese corporations who also have an interest in the overall financial market. However, more and more people outside of these industries began investing, which led to its increasing popularity.
As we already mentioned, Bitcoin’s price is mainly due to the fact that it’s the most well known out of all the cryptocurrencies, with the likes of Litecoin and others coming in a very distant second. Because of that, there are a number of other startling statistics related to cryptocurrency. One of the biggest statistics is the fact that Bitcoin currently holds a market share of about 44% of all cryptocurrencies, according to some studies, although this can fluctuate from day to day.
That being said, this can be down to how Bitcoin, as well as the overall cryptocurrency community, is perceived. For example, according to a study done in England, almost 80% of the people who invested in cryptocurrency, invested in Bitcoin specifically, leaving many others either untouched or unknown. According to those studies, there was a post about Bitcoin alone every three seconds across British social media channels.
As we already mentioned above, many early investments in cryptocurrency were in the financial sector; however, business services is currently the most popular industry to pick up cryptocurrency, spending about $487 million in the first quarter of 2018 in the niche.
