Average transaction amount

[senseless]

I was looking at BitcoinWatch and something struck me.

Transactions last 24h    7,727
Bitcoins sent last 24h    3,244,584.02 BTC

^ Average of 419 bitcoins per transaction (3779$USD average transaction at current exchanges!!!!)

Transactions avg. per hour    321.96
Bitcoins sent avg. per hour    135,191.00 BTC

^ Average of 421 bitcoins per transaction (3790$USD average transaction at current exchanges!!!!)


These figures seem a little high no? I would've expected that the average amount of coins per transaction would be much much lower. <=2bitcoins per transaction. This would be more in line with real-world numbers. Otherwise, it seems to me there's quite a bit of money moving around in large amounts. Kind of suspicious for a smaller community with not many retail outlets that accept the currency .... , no?

[Synaptic]

I was looking at BitcoinWatch and something struck me.

Transactions last 24h    7,727
Bitcoins sent last 24h    3,244,584.02 BTC

^ Average of 419 bitcoins per transaction (3779$USD average transaction at current exchanges!!!!)

Transactions avg. per hour    321.96
Bitcoins sent avg. per hour    135,191.00 BTC

^ Average of 421 bitcoins per transaction (3790$USD average transaction at current exchanges!!!!)


These figures seem a little high no? I would've expected that the average amount of coins per transaction would be much much lower. <=2bitcoins per transaction. This would be more in line with real-world numbers. Otherwise, it seems to me there's quite a bit of money moving around in large amounts. Kind of suspicious for a smaller community with not many retail outlets that accept the currency .... , no?

You just figured this out?

Lol, I've been laughing evertime someone says "OMG, we have X transactions today, what do you mean the bitcoin economy sucks?!??!"

lol....

[senseless]

Never really bothered to look before. I only have a few BTC but like to follow the progress. I've been thinking about getting into FPGA mining so I can set it up and forget it. Let it run for 5 or 10 years.

Care to elaborate?

[Synaptic]

Never really bothered to look before. I only have a few BTC but like to follow the progress. I've been thinking about getting into FPGA mining so I can set it up and forget it. Let it run for 5 or 10 years.

Care to elaborate?

Elaborate on what, exactly?

[senseless]

Elaborate on what, exactly?

On what your point was. Seemed kind of trollish, but I thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt.

[Synaptic]

Elaborate on what, exactly?

On what your point was. Seemed kind of trollish, but I thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt.

All my posts are kind of trollish...

but yeah, my point is, the amount of transactions meaning anything about bitcoin's viability is a farcical fallacy. It's obviously not transactions for any goods on the white-market, and probably not the black market either.

I suspect a LOT of bogus moving shit around for the sake of it transactions, as well as overly paranoid moon-bats laundering their coins to get some higher degree of pseudo anonymity.

Also, keep in mind that everything that happens within the exchanges never hits the chain, which is interesting.

[senseless]

All my posts are kind of trollish...

but yeah, my point is, the amount of transactions meaning anything about bitcoin's viability is a farcical fallacy. It's obviously not transactions for any goods on the white-market, and probably not the black market either.

I suspect a LOT of bogus moving shit around for the sake of it transactions, as well as overly paranoid moon-bats laundering their coins to get some higher degree of pseudo anonymity.

Also, keep in mind that everything that happens within the exchanges never hits the chain, which is interesting.

So you think people are just shifting coins in their own wallets? Are there really that many people out there who would be shifting around that much money per day/hour? It's kind of crazy unless there was some early adopter who's got a billion coins that he's slowly offloading.

I also agree it seems a little high for even black market activities. From what I saw of that one site (i cant remember the name) people were dealing with small quantities. < few BTC not hundreds or thousands of BTC worth of illegal stuff.

It does smell funny.

Anyone else have any opinions on what this might be?

[doktor99]

All my posts are kind of trollish...

but yeah, my point is, the amount of transactions meaning anything about bitcoin's viability is a farcical fallacy. It's obviously not transactions for any goods on the white-market, and probably not the black market either.

I suspect a LOT of bogus moving shit around for the sake of it transactions, as well as overly paranoid moon-bats laundering their coins to get some higher degree of pseudo anonymity.

Also, keep in mind that everything that happens within the exchanges never hits the chain, which is interesting.

So you think people are just shifting coins in their own wallets? Are there really that many people out there who would be shifting around that much money per day/hour? It's kind of crazy unless there was some early adopter who's got a billion coins that he's slowly offloading.

I also agree it seems a little high for even black market activities. From what I saw of that one site (i cant remember the name) people were dealing with small quantities. < few BTC not hundreds or thousands of BTC worth of illegal stuff.

It does smell funny.

Anyone else have any opinions on what this might be?

It's important to understand that the 'transitional volume' figures include the coins that are returned to a wallet after a partial spend. For example, if I spend 1 BTC on something, and my wallet has a single consolidated value of 5000 BTC, then the transaction looks like: 1BTC + 4999BTC, and the total volume is quoted as 5000 BTC. It is more interesting to look at BTC Day Destroyed if you're truly interested in 'velocity' in the traditional sense. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Days_Destroyed

[payb.tc]

if you have 1000 btc at one address in your wallet and you spend 0.01 btc, then that will show up as 1000 btc being transacted.

why?

because 0.01 will go to where you spend it, and 999.99 will get 'spent' to your change address.

[evoorhees]

Guys guys guys... don't let averages confuse you.  Just because btc sent / transactions = 400ish DOES NOT mean that the average transaction is that large. Easy mistake to make.

Actually, most transactions are under 100 btc, and easily a third of those are less than 10btc.  Just watch bitcoinmonitor.com to see this.

When large accounts move a boatload of coins around, it skews all those averages you're calculating. So Synaptic, how do you like them apples?! =)

[helloworld]

Guys guys guys... don't let averages confuse you.  Just because btc sent / transactions = 400ish DOES NOT mean that the average transaction is that large. Easy mistake to make.

Actually, most transactions are under 100 btc, and easily a third of those are less than 10btc.  Just watch bitcoinmonitor.com to see this.

When large accounts move a boatload of coins around, it skews all those averages you're calculating. So Synaptic, how do you like them apples?! =)

Exactly. The 'average' they are talking about is the mean but median and mode are probably much more helpful averages.

Maybe round all transactions to the nearest BTC (chop off the fractions) and then group together... what's the most common transaction size then?