Real transations vs. miners/pools/speculators?

[antirack]

From BitcoinWatch/BitCoin Charts:

Transactions last 24h:            7,150
Transactions avg. per hour:     297.92
Bitcoins sent last 24h:            685,817.55 BTC
Bitcoins sent avg. per hour:     28,575.73 BTC

I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of this is made up by miners/pools/speculators, another larger portion by Silk Road, and the rest (people actually paying for their goods/services) would be a very small portion. Like a hand full of transactions.

Has there been any "research" of the size of the real Bitcoin economy, excluding the miners, pools, speculative trades on exchanges, etc?

The list of places acceping BitCoin is growing, but based on the numbers above it looks to me like they are not getting a lot of business at this moment.

[FreeMoney]

Trades on Gox (where the 'speculators') live don't show up in that stat at all.

I've made over 6000 'real' bitcoin transactions.

[meanig]

I'm not sure why you're separating Silk Road from other people who pay for goods and services

.............another larger portion by Silk Road, and the rest (people actually paying for their goods/services) would be a very small portion. Like a hand full of transactions.

Like it or not Silk Road is a huge part of the Bitcoin economy and it's going to stay that way until drugs become legal or go out of fashion. Have a look on the Silk Road forums if you want to estimate the amount of business they are doing.