This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Mapping Bitcoin's Global Adoption
Submitted by Jonathan Stacke via The Genesis Block blog,
Bitcoin has made significant progress towards becoming the world's first truly global currency over the past few years. To gain better perspective on bitcoin’s impact, we took a look at global wallet downloads, demonstrated interest by region, exchange volumes across currencies, mining node locations, real-world interactions around bitcoin, and the major companies and investors pushing the bitcoin economy forward.
Bitcoin Software Downloads
We began by looking at which countries had the most downloads of bitcoin software and then calculated the trends over time and within context of a number of other factors. Worth noting: while this likely serves as a reasonable proxy, it is not inclusive of all bitcoin users, as hosted wallets, thin wallets and holdings at exchanges would not be reflected here.
Countries listed in order of cumulative downloads
The United States is the clear frontrunner in terms of total number of downloads. China had surprisingly few downloads for a country its size until the recent documentary aired by China’s largest state-run broadcaster. As shown in the chart above and echoed elsewhere in our findings, Russia was an early adopter but has since tapered off relative to interest growing elsewhere around the globe.
To normalize for country size, we compared total wallet downloads to the population of each country to find penetration into each region. In doing so, we quickly realized the Nordic countries are the clear leaders in bitcoin adoption. As the second chart below indicates, one probable reason for this is the region’s familiarity with and access to technology – all of the Nordic countries rank among the highest in the world for internet penetration.
They also all share similar and uniquely successful socioeconomic models based on a strong mutual trust between the citizens and states. So much so that Päivi Heikkinen, Finland’s Head of the Division for Oversight of Financial Markets Infrastructure explicitly responded to a question about whether or not bitcoin is illegal by stating, “Not at all; people can invest in and use any money they prefer.”
There is a correlation of 0.7 between a country’s bitcoin downloads per capita and internet penetration
Global Search Traffic
Historical search engine traffic from around the globe tells an interesting story as well. By tracking this, we can see the waxing and waning interest from different regions. The chart below shows interest from key countries across different time scales. The way Google Trends offers data is set by normalizing search data for population size and then assigning a value of 100 to the region with the greatest number of normalized searches. Normalized data from other regions is then compared to that on a scale of 0 to 100.
The chart above offers some interesting information. Most notably, interest in China has grown tremendously, particularly in the last 30 days since the documentary aired. We can also see from this graph that interest from Russia has slowed, relative to other countries, and some new entrants like the Czech Republic are beginning to emerge.
Looking at the chart below, we can see interest from known U.S. tech hubs like San Francisco, New York and Austin. Interestingly, there is also apparent heavy search traffic from Portland, home to Gliph, the new startup offering pseudo-identities to help facilitate bitcoin transactions.
Let the record show that the citizens of Portland, Oregon liked bitcoin before it was cool.
Exchange Volume
Searches and software downloads show interest, but the true story unfolds when money enters the picture, so looking at exchange volumes across currencies offers even deeper insight into the evolving bitcoin narrative.
As would be expected, USD still dominates trading volume, but mapped against other currencies we can see a consistent declining trend as other countries and their currencies enter the picture in larger amounts.
USD as a share of total bitcoin trading volume has fallen from near 100% to approximately 80% over the past two years. The most notable gain from is from CNY (Chinese Yuan), which grew from approximately 0.4% of total volume in April 2012 to an impressive 4.7% in April 2013.
Within the still-dominant USD trading, there is a healthy trend of diversification away from Mt. Gox towards alternative exchanges. As shown in the chart below, alternative exchanges have gained traction on the DDoS-susceptible leader in the space – a trend likely to continue after their recent loss of Dwolla as an account funding source and investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. Worth noting, the chart below should be viewed as an approximation, as data for exchanges that have shut down over the years was not available for this analysis.
Connected Nodes
Bitcoin is only as strong as the network on which it is based, so the value of connected nodes cannot be overlooked in an analysis of global adoption. The chart below shows a snapshot of the geographical breakdown of connected nodes taken on May 18.
This chart represents individual node connections, not total hashing/mining power. We’re working on an article to cover this topic in the depth it deserves, but for now we can see a story consistent with the rest of this analysis. The United States remains the power player, with significant interest from China. The Nordic countries, not represented on the graph due to their relatively low total connections, were represented at an impressive level within the data set relative to their size – as would be expected given the download data shown earlier.
Real World Interaction
The utilization of bitcoin in the real world, outside of the internet, will be paramount to its broader proliferation. There have been major advancements towards this, such as Kreuzberg, Berlin recently showing the world a significant step forward by deeply integrating bitcoin into the local economy and restaurants in New York City beginning to accept it as well.
As a proxy to determine the propensity for a region to bring the bitcoin movement offline, we looked at the number of people participating in bitcoin-oriented meetups across the world. The chart below shows the number of participants in the largest meetups in each city, grouped by country. The usual suspects are all present, with newcomers like Israel and Argentina demonstrating significant real world interest.
Breaking down offline bitcoin interest in the US even further, San Francisco and New York City remain the clear leaders, with a strong showing from Chicago and Seattle, the latter of which is home to CoinLab, the first VC-backed bitcoin startup in the US.
Companies and Venture Capital
At the backbone of the bitcoin movement are a handful of visionary entrepreneurs and prescient investors. To see where the future of bitcoin is being built, we compiled a list of leading bitcoin companies and venture capitalists, focusing on the US as it has by far the greatest number of successful companies and investment capital flow to date.
The notion of international collaboration across disparate individuals has never before been achieved at this scale, outside of the internet itself. There is a bright future ahead for bitcoin, and we’re looking forward to helping it unfold.
»
- 37772 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
FYI,
hosted wallets, thin wallets and holdings at exchanges = bank accounts
Exchange = bank.
The Bitcoin protocol doesn't scale, so they're going down the centralised route. Give it a couple of years and if it's successful, the usual suspects (The Too Big To Fail's) will buy out the "exchanges" and you'll be right back where you are now.
HTH.
"...and you'll be worse than you are now."
ftfy
@css1971
You've mistaken the temporary "bridges" as being the nod to being regulated and centralized.
They're just a crowbar on the third rail of the finance world, converting fiat into digital gold. It will be too late when they realize what they've enabled to grow unhindered in their borders.
I still have not read anything that dissuades me from bitcoin. Bleeding the value out of Bitcoin by mass produced "Bitcoin clones"/ad fintium cryto-coins could be thwarted by teathering an intermediary algorythim that attaches itself to Bitcoin and the growing cryto-universe. Large Holders of Bitcoin could then "Buy" in to the intermediary crypto algo and buttress Bitcoin value.
Bitcoin may simply grow on its own outside of the fiat economy and have increasingly less and less need to transact with fiat world as Bitcoin eoncomy grows from within its own ability to create a "wealth effect". Bitcoin offers the ability for anyone to become a participant in "uncontrolled" capital creation.
Great comments.
@DavyRoySixPack
I've always thought that if any alt-coin gained enough popularity, Bitcoin could just fork to incorporate their ideas - and then the alt-coin would fade away, with Bitcoin now sporting even more useful functions.
My personal rule of thumb is if an alt-coin gets at least 25% hash power in comparison to Bitcoin, then I'll take them seriously - otherwise its just a bunch of "twiddle the knobs on a few settings and push it out there" kind of exercise, which doesn't undermine Bitcoin at all.
If Bitcoin is matter, then there probably might be an Anti-Bitcoin or anti-matter. A Yin and a Yang. There are so many aspects to Bitcoin and misconceptions and yet concieved notions. Bitcoin, has been stated to be an inelastic money supply yet I here it can take on an infinited number of increments less than 1, not just down 12 decimals points but as far as is necessary.
I may be a succor for a complex Bitcoin trap, but I am still intrigued after 2 months. At first I thought it was a joke, but then, the thing just seemed to have legs.
A successful cryto-basket of currencies will have to have the ability "spin-off" latecomers with a ? mechanism ... to defeat ubquitous and redundant efforts that devalue Bitcoin.
It may be that Space-time may be the successor. Certain living organisms can only exist in a certain place for a certain duration.
Duration may be the primer. Bitcoin may have to evolve its own "psuedo digital Pentagon" ...
.... its all conjecture at this point ..
I would sure like to find a thread for this ..... but then you mixing in with mathmaticians ...
... it would be nice to have thread on Bitcoin logic without too much wonkish academic banter ..
... just Gut-sense bitcoin chat
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=217981.0
Bitcoin is a result of entropy within partially free or totally free systems. Entropy also has its originations in natural sciences, in particular thermodynamics, and this concept is true across closed systems. Perhaps it is entropy that led Thomas Jefferson to say, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
The usefulness of spontaneous order is its complexity. The metastasizing of spontaneous order is far more intricate than can any human mind or controllers of a system. Just like the borg was intended to be in Star Trek – unpenetrable to outside threats – spontaneous order is as well, perhaps more effectively so, as the response to a threat is within the decentralized network. In a centralized hive society, the response to an outside circumstance would first be disseminated from the top, instead of horizontally.
https://www.goldsilverbitcoin.com/bitcoinhivespontaneousorde/
increment bitchez
Show me the gold vs bitcoin price and I'll show you a true people's market
Gladly:
Bitcoin Priced in Gold
Simply Awesome.
I wonder if any central bank could consider holding bitcoin as a reserve asset, same as they hold gold. The first one that does, wins.
Great timing on this peice; Bitcoin has had one hell of a month, with more good news than anyone could have dreamed.
I personally figure that May 2013 was the exact point where bitcoin reached Critical Mass. Now it's actually unstoppable.
I explain why here: http://bitcoinfinger.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/bitcoin-reaches-critical-mass (And yes, it has something to
do with these stats Tyler posted.)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=217981.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=217981.0
BTW Traders may be interested in the volatility
March 31st $92
April 12th $260
April 14th $54
May 1st $100
May 27 $126
https://mtgox.com/
Discovered Bitcoin March 31st 2013. Became an instant fan.
Community needs 1) ability to insure "deposits" in wallets(Insures could also offer life and non life paid in bitcoin as a choice on principle)
2) Organizations actively lobbying merchants to accept Bitcoin directly for purchases; although it is easily achived through 3rd parties like bitpay https://bitpay.com/ it is no as easy as spending cash or using debit/credit card yet.
3) A mechanism to stabalize the exchange rate to fiats as the wild swings discourage adoption.
lets tell the truth - bitcoin is an electronic currency for day-to-day purchases of services and non-tangible goods over internet. Hardly will become anything more than that.