Re:Bitcoin Mining Now Consuming More Electricity Than Many C...
by PeterisP on Thursday November 23, 2017 @02:55AM
(#15763564)
Looking at BTC stats it seems that we're talking about an order of magnitude of 300k transactions per day with a total volume of roughly 2 billion USD per day.
Mastercard transacts roughly 200m transactions per day with a total volume of roughly 10 billion USD per day; so 600 times more deals than bitcoin, but with a lot of quite small transactions.
USA fedwire has about 400k transactions per day (because in USA wire transfers aren't much used by ordinary people) with a total volume of roughly 2 trillion USD per day, so 1000 times more than bitcoin in terms of worth.
EU retail payment systems ("wire transfers" in US terms but for consumers, not the very large settlements) have about 14 million transactions per day with a total volume of 100 billion, so something like 50 times more than bitcoin in both number and volume.
So while Bitcoin is a serious factor, it still comprises a small (<0.1%) amount of the global transaction numbers and amounts; and we'd need at least a thousandfold growth in volume if bitcoin is to replace our current infrastructure.
Mastercard transacts roughly 200m transactions per day with a total volume of roughly 10 billion USD per day; so 600 times more deals than bitcoin, but with a lot of quite small transactions.
USA fedwire has about 400k transactions per day (because in USA wire transfers aren't much used by ordinary people) with a total volume of roughly 2 trillion USD per day, so 1000 times more than bitcoin in terms of worth.
EU retail payment systems ("wire transfers" in US terms but for consumers, not the very large settlements) have about 14 million transactions per day with a total volume of 100 billion, so something like 50 times more than bitcoin in both number and volume.
So while Bitcoin is a serious factor, it still comprises a small (<0.1%) amount of the global transaction numbers and amounts; and we'd need at least a thousandfold growth in volume if bitcoin is to replace our current infrastructure.