The current state of Bitcoin development from the data: demand is rising, volatility is decreasing

The Bitcoin economy is growing rapidly and the landscape continues to change before our eyes. More and more people have become interested in Bitcoin this year as demand for this decentralized cryptocurrency has risen around the world.

Over the past eight years, the Bitcoin ecosystem has undergone tremendous changes, and more and more people have become interested in this digital currency. Although there have been some setbacks this year, the price of Bitcoin has been able to maintain a four-digit price for a long time. 2017 has witnessed changes in the entire Bitcoin economy. In this article, we will analyze the achievements of Bitcoin in Q1 2017 and the interesting trends of cryptocurrencies.

Localbitcoins global trading volume in 2017

Localbitcoins has seen record trading volumes this year and is still increasing. The P2P trading platform has seen nearly 3200万美元in weekly trading. Some Bitcoiners speculate that the rise in Localbitcoins trading is likely related to the recent stringent regulations imposed by the Chinese central bank on domestic Bitcoin exchanges. Others believe that capital controls in China and other countries in recession are also a reason for the rise in P2P trading.

Localbitcoins trading volume rises in China

Since Chinese bitcoin trading platforms were regulated, some of the bitcoin trading volume has been allocated to Localbitcoins. Before 2017, the RMB trading volume on Localbitcoins was very low. Now, the P2P exchange has more and more Chinese users, and the trading volume of the top three currencies on Localbitcoins - RMB, USD and RUB - is comparable.

China's Bitcoin trading volume drops sharply

Due to the regulation of the People’s Bank of China, the volume of RMB-to-BTC trading has dropped sharply in 2017. Of course, many people believe that there was a suspicion of fraud in the past, after all, Chinese exchanges did not charge fees. However, since the People’s Bank of China introduced new AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (know your customer) rules, ended leveraged trading, and forced exchanges to charge fees, everything has changed. In addition, several major Chinese Bitcoin exchanges have suspended cryptocurrency withdrawals for more than a month, and many people believe that this business will never be reopened until regulatory measures are implemented.

Google data shows Bitcoin's growth in 2017

According to Google data, the number of Bitcoin keyword searches has increased in many countries around the world this year. Figure 1 shows that the number of Bitcoin users has doubled every month since 2013. Figure 2 proves that the regions with the largest Bitcoin searches are in Africa and the Baltic region.

Bitcoin ATMs hit record high

The number of Bitcoin ATMs (BTMs) around the world has been increasing in recent years and has reached a record high this year. According to Coinatmradar.com, there are currently 1,081 BTMs in 56 countries around the world. The United States and Europe have the largest number of BTMs. In addition, there are currently 23 BTM manufacturers and 202 related service providers.

The Bitcoin Economy Continues to Grow

Many aspects of the Bitcoin ecosystem are trending upwards, such as Bitcoin wallets, transactions, transaction volume, price, and Bitcoin network computing power are all increasing. The only thing in the Bitcoin economy that is declining is the price volatility of this decentralized cryptocurrency.