Cambridge Benchmarking Study on Bitcoin and Cryptoassets

[WickedPigeon]

https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/centres/alternative-finance/downloads/2018-12-ccaf-2nd-global-cryptoasset-benchmarking.pdf

From the Foreword:
It is my great pleasure to announce the release of the second Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study produced by the Cambridge Centre of Alternative Finance based at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. It examines significant developments in the global cryptoasset ecosystem that have occurred since the publication of our initial benchmarking study of cryptocurrencies in April 2017. The emphasis on ‘global’ in the title of this study is critically important given the increasingly fluid, borderless nature of the cryptoasset industry. It also reflects a core competence of our research centre, which is engaging in empirical research investigating global technology-enabled financial innovation emerging outside of the incumbent financial system. For our 2nd cryptoasset report the research team spent several months collecting data from more than 180 entities in 47 different countries, which represents a 25% increase in both the number of participants and countries represented in comparison to our 2017 benchmarking report.

 

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[kryptqnick]

Thanks for sharing these findings. I am generally respectful of such universities, but it seems that their analysis is a bit weird if not inaccurate. For instance, they say that new users are passive, whereas we can see a big number of transactions and increased trading volume. They also say that mining is not that centralised, but isn't it 50%+ centralised by Bitmain?
I only skimmed the main points, so perhaps they explain stuff is the text. And such research is important anyway.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

Yeah, if you read in to it, it states that percentage of active users on various services is increasing on average (35% in 2016 up to 38% in 2018), but in quantitative terms the increase in active users is far less than than the increase in total users. They are therefore drawing the conclusion that many new users are passive - i.e. make one or two purchases and just hold, as opposed to actively trading or spending crypto.

I do like their data regarding energy consumption of mining - in short, crypto mining uses less energy than previously thought, and of the energy it does use, more of it is renewable than previously thought. The worst offenders for CO₂ release are China, who draw almost all of their energy (not just mining related) from fossil fuels.

[anu1908]

I do like their data regarding energy consumption of mining - in short, crypto mining uses less energy than previously thought, and of the energy it does use, more of it is renewable than previously thought. The worst offenders for CO₂ release are China, who draw almost all of their energy (not just mining related) from fossil fuels.

iirc somebody said that (can't find the source, will dig later) in China you can find renewable energy source such as water quite easily? i think green mining is definitely a great alternative to decrease this fossil fuels consumption.

i'm pretty sure some miners already use renewable energy source that is more friendly to the environment though maybe it's just a minority.

[hatshepsut93]

This is a really interesting paper, here's some parts that surprised me:

139 million users, that's really a lot, even if only 35% are active. This number should be further divided to get some estimate for crypto users in general, because people generally have multiple exchange accounts (I own at least 10, I think).

Bitcoin is using 0.01% of world's electricity, and not 0.1% or 1% like some people reported. Also it's good to see that this report confirms that majority of the energy comes from renewable sources

[Bitinity]

This is a really interesting paper, here's some parts that surprised me:

139 million users, that's really a lot, even if only 35% are active. This number should be further divided to get some estimate for crypto users in general, because people generally have multiple exchange accounts (I own at least 10, I think).

Bitcoin is using 0.01% of world's electricity, and not 0.1% or 1% like some people reported. Also it's good to see that this report confirms that majority of the energy comes from renewable sources

38% are active, not 35% and probably the number has increased during the last few months. It would be nice if they can do more regular research about this thing, lets say every for every quarter of each year. Then we will know how the progress every quarter and we can analyze what the reasons behind it. No matter the number of active users is increased and decreased.

[Haunebu]

This is a really interesting paper, here's some parts that surprised me:

139 million users, that's really a lot, even if only 35% are active. This number should be further divided to get some estimate for crypto users in general, because people generally have multiple exchange accounts (I own at least 10, I think).

Bitcoin is using 0.01% of world's electricity, and not 0.1% or 1% like some people reported. Also it's good to see that this report confirms that majority of the energy comes from renewable sources

38% are active, not 35% and probably the number has increased during the last few months. It would be nice if they can do more regular research about this thing, lets say every for every quarter of each year. Then we will know how the progress every quarter and we can analyze what the reasons behind it. No matter the number of active users is increased and decreased.

35 million identity-verified users(Not 35%) and 38% of all users were considered to be active. Easy to get confused regarding these numbers. Firstly, I am happy that Cambridge decided to do another study regarding cryptoassets after their 1st one in 2017.

Am not expecting them to go out of their way to research this topic several times a year which is why I am satisfied with what they are doing.

[o_e_l_e_o]

139 million users, that's really a lot

I think that's probably an over-estimation. If you read their methodology, they themselves admit that this is a very rough educated guess. They look at various surveys and studies to estimate between 2% and 9% of the population of the developed world own cryptocurrency, and pull the number from that. They also note that 139 million user accounts is very different from 139 million unique users. In reality the number could be (and almost certainly is) much lower.

35 million identity-verified users

This is their estimated lower limit for the number of unique users - much lower than the 139 million they previously mentioned.