Bitcoin’s Growth In Numbers
By: Joel John
Tags: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency

Including transaction fees — miners have been paid out 18,318,525 bitcoin or over $16 billion. Given that in December 2019 there were 18,076,100 bitcoins in circulation, it is safe to suggest that some ~242,525.09 Bitcoins were paid in fees over the past decade. I assume that as mining difficulty increases and halving inches closer — mining will become an increasingly institutionalized play. We will see newer unicorns coming from the facilitation of mining (retail side), development of ASICs, manufacturing and supply chain (e.g.: what Xiaomi did to mobiles) and infrastructure service providers that focus on greener sources of energy. We may also witness government subsidies in real estate and energy being on the rise as Bitcoin’s ability to kick-start regional economies through mining enabled interest in the region becomes more evident.

In case you are wondering how those fees were distributed — here’s the chart for mining fee distribution in 2019 (excluding fees paid to unknown pools)

What does all of this mean (to me?)

I have always seen Bitcoin as the most significant financial experiment the world has ever known. It was built on 40 years of improvements in cryptography and multiple decade’s worths of experimenting with digital currency. When many of look at the ecosystem today — they see loud crowds on twitter, speculative manias, and what may be a chaotic culture. What they ignore is the fact these are by design because Bitcoin was not to compete against existing paradigms in Fintech. If that were the case, Satoshi might have been pitching to VCs in Silicon Valley instead of writing to the cypherpunks mailing list. It is a requirement if Bitcoin is to be a real alternative. The moment we have a “face” or a “headquarter” — these systems could be taken down. Bitcoin is more than the arguments we see on twitter or the angle the media pitches things at. It is change embodied in code.

Writing from a country where currency was demonetised in a matter of hours, I see why alternatives are needed. As with all technology, regulators need to realise that the genie is out of the bag. They can push it to the fringes, malign its name and very well criminalise its ownership. But they cannot tame it (yet). We see it when individuals rush to Bitcoin during CNY devaluation, an inflation crisis in Zimbabwe, a debt crisis in Greece or the demonetisation in India. The point is, people are waking up to the realisation that an alternative exists. As Nic Carter once wrote — Bitcoin is the most peaceful revolution in the history of humanity. That to me, is the allure of Bitcoin. These metrics simply show how significantly the ecosystem around it has grown. Whether these trends hold over the next decade, or price does go to $100k is not a concern (for me). So long as transactions are confirmed — Bitcoin has solved for what it was built for in its own right.

On a parting note, this is what Bitcoin’s report card for the decade would look like

Had to go with November since data for December was only partially available when I began work on this piece.

Notes

1. All data mentioned here was sourced from TokenAnalyst.io. I don’t get paid to say this but if you are an analyst exploring the space — make sure you ping their team because they have the best data streams in the industry. Also, they are nice guys. Feel free to ping me for any references on them.

2. I cannot be handing over the data in this piece to you since it is a paid product and I did not curate it personally. I also have a job and responding to data queries takes precious time from all the other things I enjoy doing. Like cooking and reading books. Exceptions to this rule are — regulators, academia (professors) and contributors to the ecosystem. I am most definitely not going to export this data for college assignments (don’t try).

3. Don’t see this as a “buy” recommendation for Bitcoin. I don’t know where this thing is headed in terms of price. The objective of this post was to look at the metrics we routinely ignore and track how they have evolved. I did not compare this with traditional fintech platforms because that would be akin to comparing submarines to boats. Same same, but different. As with everything else in life, make an educated choice about ownership of the asset.

4. If you translate this piece — please drop me a link and attribute it to the website. If you are in university — e-mail me from your academic address with a link to the translated work for free coffee.

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