Bitcoin usage is flat

[Nagle]

Bitcoin estimated transaction volume,  USD

Bitcoin transaction volume in US dollars is surprisingly flat, and has been for the last year. Occasionally there's a day with a transaction volume spike, but that's frantic trading, not usage. While the number of Bitcoins involved in transactions is up, that's because the price of Bitcoins is going down.

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[Amph]

because all they want is more fiat apparently, thus they keep converting bitcoin to the rubbish fiat

the number of transactions isn't a good instrument at least for bitcoin, because there are many transaction that are there because of cold storage(many are just securing their coins) or for anon purpose(others are trying to mix it to maintain their privacy)

[crazyivan]

Bitcoin estimated transaction volume,  USD

Bitcoin transaction volume in US dollars is surprisingly flat, and has been for the last year. Occasionally there's a day with a transaction volume spike, but that's frantic trading, not usage. While the number of Bitcoins involved in transactions is up, that's because the price of Bitcoins is going down.

True. So what be done about this? When do you expect this situation to change?

[Elwar]

Actually, if bitcoin is able to keep up with the dollar this year it is doing better than 99% of world currencies.

When I arrived in Germany last summer the rate was $1.35 / euro. Today it is $1.08.

The dollar is exceeding other currencies because the Fed plans to raise interest rates while other countries are planning on pumping more money into their economies.

But I can see the dollar triggering some very bad economic moves when they do raise the rates later this year.

[MicroGuy]

Most bitcoin users are speculators and not consumers. Bitcoin is failing miserably on the consumer side.

If someone can explain to Joe down the street why he should jump through verification hoops so he can buy bitcoins on coinbase, and then go make purchases for goods and services at a limited number of places using those freshly exchanged bitcoins, while he could have bought those same goods and services at those same places, and at a wider range of places, with the debit card he already has in his wallet, then Bitcoin usage will increase.

[Lauda]

Most bitcoin users are speculators and not consumers. Bitcoin is failing miserably on the consumer side.

If someone can explain to Joe down the street why he should jump through verification hoops so he can buy bitcoins on coinbase, and then go make purchases for goods and services at a limited number of places using those freshly exchanged bitcoins, while he could have bought those sames goods and services at those sames places, and at a wider range of places, with the debit card he already has in his wallet, then Bitcoin usage will increase.

Indeed. Most of the people here are just here to cash out for a lot of fiat. Those people deserve being burned while trading. I usually try to buy something using Bitcoin or sometimes gamble for fun. There is still the problem of payment processors where sales are just continuously pushing the price downward.

Actually, if bitcoin is able to keep up with the dollar this year it is doing better than 99% of world currencies.
When I arrived in Germany last summer the rate was $1.35 / euro. Today it is $1.08.

The dollar is exceeding other currencies because the Fed plans to raise interest rates while other countries are planning on pumping more money into their economies.
But I can see the dollar triggering some very bad economic moves when they do raise the rates later this year.

That is true, however the media won't report this. The media usually reports about Bitcoin when something bad happens. Remember the articles about Bitcoin being the worst investment in a period of time (I can't remember)?

[WhatTheGox]

Bitcoin estimated transaction volume,  USD

Bitcoin transaction volume in US dollars is surprisingly flat, and has been for the last year. Occasionally there's a day with a transaction volume spike, but that's frantic trading, not usage. While the number of Bitcoins involved in transactions is up, that's because the price of Bitcoins is going down.

looks like the transaction volume goes flat everytime there isn't price bubbles, overall its still a higher flat vs previous years, maybe that is something to be optimistic of.

[manselr]

It will take a lot of time for the flatness on that graph to translate into the Bitcoin price, which is great for us early adopters since it gives us extra time to benefit from the ups and downs.

[tokeweed]

Techcrunch article from the outside looking in.

The bitcoin-watching news service CoinDesk recently released its first quarter look into the cryptocurrency’s performance during the opening months of 2015. Mostly the data is net positive, showing an increase in total wallets, and investment. However, [b[there are a number of included data points that demonstrate slowing growth in key bitcoin, and bitcoin-related areas.[/b]

The collected data indicates that the first quarter of 2015 was the most popular ever in terms of the dollar-value of venture capital investments made into the bitcoin ecosystem. That data point, however, is skewed by a single investment — the $116 round million invested into 21, a company that remains at least partially occluded in terms of its ambitions. Aside from that single investment, first quarter venture investment was on par — $113 million — with the preceding fourth quarter.

Key to bitcoin’s performance, at least from an external perspective, is the number of wallets in existence. Those receptacles and storage locations of bitcoin help the market understand how many new people the cryptocurrency is attracting. In the first quarter, according to the CoinDesk report, total wallets grew from 7.4 million to 8.4 million, up 14 percent on a sequential quarter basis.

That growth rate is likely under expectations from a year ago. The market value of all bitcoin in circulation — some remains yet-to-be-mined — fell from the last quarter of 2014 to the first quarter of 2015 by 36 percent.

Here’s CoinDesk’s recent chart of aggregate bitcoin trading volume, on a monthly basis:


The sequential quarter total is skewed by the November timeframe, but it seems that volume hasn’t seen too great an acceleration, or deceleration in the last two three-month cycles.

Among the bulleted key takeaways that the report contains is the following: “Bitcoin struggled to gain mainstream consumer traction [in the quarter].” That has been the case for the life of bitcoin. That the trend persists isn’t, therefore, too surprising. Still, it isn’t hard to wonder what bitcoin firms that pitched investors over the past 18 months, predicted would happen — did they anticipate that the price of bitcoin be so low? Would investors have invested quite so much over the past year if bitcoin wallet adoption was as slow as it has been?

Last thought, here’s CoinDesk’s aggregate new merchant adoption of bitcoin:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/26/bitcoins-q1-record-vc-investment-falling-prices-and-slow-consumer-adoption/

[WhatTheGox]

Techcrunch article from the outside looking in.

The bitcoin-watching news service CoinDesk recently released its first quarter look into the cryptocurrency’s performance during the opening months of 2015. Mostly the data is net positive, showing an increase in total wallets, and investment. However, [b[there are a number of included data points that demonstrate slowing growth in key bitcoin, and bitcoin-related areas.[/b]

The collected data indicates that the first quarter of 2015 was the most popular ever in terms of the dollar-value of venture capital investments made into the bitcoin ecosystem. That data point, however, is skewed by a single investment — the $116 round million invested into 21, a company that remains at least partially occluded in terms of its ambitions. Aside from that single investment, first quarter venture investment was on par — $113 million — with the preceding fourth quarter.

Key to bitcoin’s performance, at least from an external perspective, is the number of wallets in existence. Those receptacles and storage locations of bitcoin help the market understand how many new people the cryptocurrency is attracting. In the first quarter, according to the CoinDesk report, total wallets grew from 7.4 million to 8.4 million, up 14 percent on a sequential quarter basis.

That growth rate is likely under expectations from a year ago. The market value of all bitcoin in circulation — some remains yet-to-be-mined — fell from the last quarter of 2014 to the first quarter of 2015 by 36 percent.

Here’s CoinDesk’s recent chart of aggregate bitcoin trading volume, on a monthly basis:


The sequential quarter total is skewed by the November timeframe, but it seems that volume hasn’t seen too great an acceleration, or deceleration in the last two three-month cycles.

Among the bulleted key takeaways that the report contains is the following: “Bitcoin struggled to gain mainstream consumer traction [in the quarter].” That has been the case for the life of bitcoin. That the trend persists isn’t, therefore, too surprising. Still, it isn’t hard to wonder what bitcoin firms that pitched investors over the past 18 months, predicted would happen — did they anticipate that the price of bitcoin be so low? Would investors have invested quite so much over the past year if bitcoin wallet adoption was as slow as it has been?

Last thought, here’s CoinDesk’s aggregate new merchant adoption of bitcoin:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/26/bitcoins-q1-record-vc-investment-falling-prices-and-slow-consumer-adoption/

I would guess merchant adoption to be down until bitcoin makes another evolutionary jump is usability.  Everyone who would want to accept bitcoin in its current state mostly already has.

[Beliathon]

Actually, if bitcoin is able to keep up with the dollar this year it is doing better than 99% of world currencies.

When I arrived in Germany last summer the rate was $1.35 / euro. Today it is $1.08.

The dollar is exceeding other currencies because the Fed plans to raise interest rates while other countries are planning on pumping more money into their economies.

But I can see the dollar triggering some very bad economic moves when they do raise the rates later this year.

BOOM, same reason gold and other precious metals are down.

QFT. More to the point, it's folly to compare the dollar to bitcoin, it's completely apples to oranges.

The dollar is a giant lumbering 300 year old animatronic beast, it's movements manipulated by the agendas of men. Bitcoin is a protocol, a software organism.

[philipma1957]

Most bitcoin users are speculators and not consumers. Bitcoin is failing miserably on the consumer side.

If someone can explain to Joe down the street why he should jump through verification hoops so he can buy bitcoins on coinbase, and then go make purchases for goods and services at a limited number of places using those freshly exchanged bitcoins, while he could have bought those same goods and services at those same places, and at a wider range of places, with the debit card he already has in his wallet, then Bitcoin usage will increase.

It's strongest values are speculation as an inflation hedge. escape money incase your country falls apart.  to use it as worldwide currency  may work in thrid world countries but in a fairly stable place send a coin to a company for an item is not worthwhile to a buyer.

The biggest problem is the average Joe down the street really should not use it to shop.  Why? hardly any protection for him.

Now I have multiple accounts with coins.

 Do I really ever want to shop with my coins?  no because the seller can fuck me far too easily.

Once you make an escrow service for btc that protects the buyer you basically add a ton of cost to moving the money.
I do not think it will ever catch on for buyers of products.
I have free cc's :

 with 60 price match
fraud if hacked
1 year returns
2x warranty
and they earn 5% back.

How on earth does btc match that for a buyer.  the answer is they do  not and can not match that.

So BTC for me has speculation value.  And if I ever need to run from a country due to it collapsing I will be able to access coins once I get out.

[tokeweed]

Techcrunch article from the outside looking in.

The bitcoin-watching news service CoinDesk recently released its first quarter look into the cryptocurrency’s performance during the opening months of 2015. Mostly the data is net positive, showing an increase in total wallets, and investment. However, [b[there are a number of included data points that demonstrate slowing growth in key bitcoin, and bitcoin-related areas.[/b]

The collected data indicates that the first quarter of 2015 was the most popular ever in terms of the dollar-value of venture capital investments made into the bitcoin ecosystem. That data point, however, is skewed by a single investment — the $116 round million invested into 21, a company that remains at least partially occluded in terms of its ambitions. Aside from that single investment, first quarter venture investment was on par — $113 million — with the preceding fourth quarter.

Key to bitcoin’s performance, at least from an external perspective, is the number of wallets in existence. Those receptacles and storage locations of bitcoin help the market understand how many new people the cryptocurrency is attracting. In the first quarter, according to the CoinDesk report, total wallets grew from 7.4 million to 8.4 million, up 14 percent on a sequential quarter basis.

That growth rate is likely under expectations from a year ago. The market value of all bitcoin in circulation — some remains yet-to-be-mined — fell from the last quarter of 2014 to the first quarter of 2015 by 36 percent.

Here’s CoinDesk’s recent chart of aggregate bitcoin trading volume, on a monthly basis:


The sequential quarter total is skewed by the November timeframe, but it seems that volume hasn’t seen too great an acceleration, or deceleration in the last two three-month cycles.

Among the bulleted key takeaways that the report contains is the following: “Bitcoin struggled to gain mainstream consumer traction [in the quarter].” That has been the case for the life of bitcoin. That the trend persists isn’t, therefore, too surprising. Still, it isn’t hard to wonder what bitcoin firms that pitched investors over the past 18 months, predicted would happen — did they anticipate that the price of bitcoin be so low? Would investors have invested quite so much over the past year if bitcoin wallet adoption was as slow as it has been?

Last thought, here’s CoinDesk’s aggregate new merchant adoption of bitcoin:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/26/bitcoins-q1-record-vc-investment-falling-prices-and-slow-consumer-adoption/

I would guess merchant adoption to be down until bitcoin makes another evolutionary jump is usability.  Everyone who would want to accept bitcoin in its current state mostly already has.

Yup.  But that won't change the numbers.  Whether that article is totally based on facts or not is besides the point (for me).  That article is from Techcrunch.  The group of people who run it knows what's up in the tech world.  And that article shows what they think of Bitcoin at present.  It's a bleak picture, and an article that insinuates that Coindesk was skewing the numbers to make it seem everything is booming.  When in reality, it's not.  Techcrunch is probably trying to show the people outside of Bitcoin what's up.

[pitham1]

While the number of Bitcoins involved in transactions is up, that's because the price of Bitcoins is going down.

This is what matters. Bitcoin usage (measured in bitcoins) is actually up. The dollar value does not matter.

[WhatTheGox]

Techcrunch article from the outside looking in.

The bitcoin-watching news service CoinDesk recently released its first quarter look into the cryptocurrency’s performance during the opening months of 2015. Mostly the data is net positive, showing an increase in total wallets, and investment. However, [b[there are a number of included data points that demonstrate slowing growth in key bitcoin, and bitcoin-related areas.[/b]

The collected data indicates that the first quarter of 2015 was the most popular ever in terms of the dollar-value of venture capital investments made into the bitcoin ecosystem. That data point, however, is skewed by a single investment — the $116 round million invested into 21, a company that remains at least partially occluded in terms of its ambitions. Aside from that single investment, first quarter venture investment was on par — $113 million — with the preceding fourth quarter.

Key to bitcoin’s performance, at least from an external perspective, is the number of wallets in existence. Those receptacles and storage locations of bitcoin help the market understand how many new people the cryptocurrency is attracting. In the first quarter, according to the CoinDesk report, total wallets grew from 7.4 million to 8.4 million, up 14 percent on a sequential quarter basis.

That growth rate is likely under expectations from a year ago. The market value of all bitcoin in circulation — some remains yet-to-be-mined — fell from the last quarter of 2014 to the first quarter of 2015 by 36 percent.

Here’s CoinDesk’s recent chart of aggregate bitcoin trading volume, on a monthly basis:


The sequential quarter total is skewed by the November timeframe, but it seems that volume hasn’t seen too great an acceleration, or deceleration in the last two three-month cycles.

Among the bulleted key takeaways that the report contains is the following: “Bitcoin struggled to gain mainstream consumer traction [in the quarter].” That has been the case for the life of bitcoin. That the trend persists isn’t, therefore, too surprising. Still, it isn’t hard to wonder what bitcoin firms that pitched investors over the past 18 months, predicted would happen — did they anticipate that the price of bitcoin be so low? Would investors have invested quite so much over the past year if bitcoin wallet adoption was as slow as it has been?

Last thought, here’s CoinDesk’s aggregate new merchant adoption of bitcoin:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/26/bitcoins-q1-record-vc-investment-falling-prices-and-slow-consumer-adoption/

I would guess merchant adoption to be down until bitcoin makes another evolutionary jump is usability.  Everyone who would want to accept bitcoin in its current state mostly already has.

Yup.  But that won't change the numbers.  Whether that article is totally based on facts or not is besides the point (for me).  That article is from Techcrunch.  The group of people who run it knows what's up in the tech world.  And that article shows what they think of Bitcoin at present.  It's a bleak picture, and an article that insinuates that Coindesk was skewing the numbers to make it seem everything is booming.  When in reality, it's not.  Techcrunch is probably trying to show the people outside of Bitcoin what's up.

When people are talking about bitcoin its always good news usually, unless its dead i say its bullish that such official media is covering stories like this.

[Alley]

There is no incentive to shop with btc.  There needs to be discounts for people to go through the trouble of buying bitcoins.

[Vyazhan]

There is no incentive to shop with btc.  There needs to be discounts for people to go through the trouble of buying bitcoins.

This is a great idea worth spreading to all merchants

[687_2]

Most bitcoin users are speculators and not consumers. Bitcoin is failing miserably on the consumer side.

If someone can explain to Joe down the street why he should jump through verification hoops so he can buy bitcoins on coinbase, and then go make purchases for goods and services at a limited number of places using those freshly exchanged bitcoins, while he could have bought those same goods and services at those same places, and at a wider range of places, with the debit card he already has in his wallet, then Bitcoin usage will increase.

It's because you can't explain inflation in a 3 second news blurb.

[nikona]

Bitcoin estimated transaction volume,  USD

Bitcoin transaction volume in US dollars is surprisingly flat, and has been for the last year. Occasionally there's a day with a transaction volume spike, but that's frantic trading, not usage. While the number of Bitcoins involved in transactions is up, that's because the price of Bitcoins is going down.

True. So what be done about this? When do you expect this situation to change?

Perhaps Satoshi over-estimated bitcoin by thinking that it will replace fiat and ended up creating 21 million Bitcoins. If be had only 21000, then due to the decimal values, we could have had the same volume just by that.

I doubt anything can be done about the price decline, except for hoping that the halving next year might improve things. But it is hard to say what exactly will bring about the stability in the price

[Nagle]

Last thought, here’s CoinDesk’s aggregate new merchant adoption of bitcoin:

Is there data on formerly Bitcoin-accepting businesses? That needs to be subtracted from the above chart?

* NewEgg - Bitcoin promotion over.
* "No, big companies don't really accept Bitcoin" - Money