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Bitcoin => Bitcoin Discussion => Topic started by: AmpEater on February 23, 2011, 01:00:57 AM



Title: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: AmpEater on February 23, 2011, 01:00:57 AM
I just found bitcoinwatch.com after weeks of watching bitcoin numbers and stats indirectly through other sites and it put everything in perspective.

‎$470,000 in transactions over the last 24 hrs, and not a single cent lost to fees, banks, paypal, eBay, or any authoritative body of any kind! Not a cent blocked by borders, currency difference, govt censorship. (I can't donate to wikileaks, but a corporation has the right to unlimited anonymous political contribution in the name of free speech?) Bullshit like that sows the seeds of it's own undoing!

I knew there were $5.4 mil bitcoins out there, i watched the price move around, I see trade being done....but it just never hit home that this is really being used on a legitimate scale already!  Were not talking an avg trade of $1 or $5BTC, but over $200BTC! And a half million a day?

Color me impressed.  And deeply humbled to have the chance to participate in something with such powerful repercussions.


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: jgarzik on February 23, 2011, 01:49:28 AM
Yep, half a million BTC transactions per day is pretty damn impressive. This also shows decent "money velocity" of almost 10% day. In other words we turn over entire money supply every 10 days.

Just to clarify, that was 2,211 transactions, whose values totals ~500,000 BTC...  Not ~500,000 transactions...



Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: kiba on February 23, 2011, 02:05:45 AM
I wonder how many bitcoins are just being shuffled back and forth.


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: AmpEater on February 23, 2011, 02:07:49 AM
I wonder how many bitcoins are just being shuffled back and forth.

Ultimately, isn't all currency just shuffled back and forth?

But it is telling that $4xx,xxx in BTC only amounted to 12k in volume on mt gox. 


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: jgarzik on February 23, 2011, 02:12:58 AM
I wonder how many bitcoins are just being shuffled back and forth.

Note that ~500,000 BTC number includes change transactions (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transactions#Output).

Quote
Ultimately, isn't all currency just shuffled back and forth?

But it is telling that $4xx,xxx in BTC only amounted to 12k in volume on mt gox. 

Why is that telling?  The amount of USD exchanged on various Forex sites is only tangentially related to the amount of USD used worldwide in everyday commerce.


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: DELTA9 on February 23, 2011, 02:13:18 AM
Great site. Has been my homepage for months...

 ;D


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: Local on February 23, 2011, 04:08:10 AM
I wonder how many bitcoins are just being shuffled back and forth.

Ultimately, isn't all currency just shuffled back and forth?

But it is telling that $4xx,xxx in BTC only amounted to 12k in volume on mt gox. 

Yes, but usually we don't count me moving $300 from an atm to my pocket to my wife to the store as $900 worth of money movement like it could appear on the chain. Otoh real activity can also sometimes not be seen like if I ship 200BTC via mtgox in return for a used couch.


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: Quip on February 23, 2011, 06:51:29 AM
http://bitcoincharts.com/


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: Raulo on February 23, 2011, 07:42:51 AM
As mentioned above, due to change transactions and people shuffling bitcoins between different computers they own, the real transaction volume is likely less than 5% of the value displayed on bitcoinwatch. You are grossly overestimating the BTC trade volume.

Heck, bitcoin faucet pays 0.05 BTC hundreds times a day and results in about 200 BTC per transaction due to 2xx.xx BTC change.


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: casascius on February 23, 2011, 07:48:37 AM
‎$470,000 in transactions over the last 24 hrs, and not a single cent lost to fees, banks, paypal, eBay, or any authoritative body of any kind!

I have to say you are a tiny bit wrong...

In the week or so of mining I have done, I have collected 0.02 BTC in fee revenue.

Why anyone is offering a transaction fee when it's optional, I don't know!  But someone, somewhere, has "lost" one cent to fees, on two occasions, and I was the lucky recipient.

Though, compared to PayPal, that's pretty dang good.


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: jav on February 23, 2011, 08:35:28 AM
Even more monitoring sites compiled here: http://bitcoin.witcoin.com/p/75/bitcoin-monitoring-sites---lets-compile-a-list :-)


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: Stephen Gornick on February 23, 2011, 01:48:18 PM
Heck, bitcoin faucet pays 0.05 BTC hundreds times a day and results in about 200 BTC per transaction due to 2xx.xx BTC change.

That specifically is a perfect example of a transaction that skews both "average transaction size" and "total BTC volume" metrics.

I posted some ideas on how to come closer to being able to measure transaction network volume:
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3601.msg52712#msg52712


Title: Re: I just found bitcoinwatch.com
Post by: rebuilder on February 23, 2011, 05:13:59 PM
I'd say at the "real" transaction volume (money changing hands from one economic operator to another) is at most 50% of the raw volume. Probably a lot less, but almost definitely not about 50%. Why? Exchanges. Person A deposits 100 BTC on their mt gox account. 1 transaction. Person B buys those 100 BTC and withdraws them to their account. 2 transactions in total, when the significant part of what happened was that A sold Bitcoin to B. Of course mt gox takes a cut in the middle as well, and if B is looking to anonymize their coins, they'll transfer them around quite a lot.

I don't think the raw numbers tell you very much. Looking at them over time might be more interesting - how much does the volume of transactions change?