CoinDesk is pleased to announce the latest quarterly State of Bitcoin
report, featuring a 2014 Year in Review, an in-depth analysis of data
and events from the fourth quarter of 2014 and a look ahead to what 2015
might bring.
Overall, 2014 could be characterized as a ‘Tale of Two Bitcoins’.
On the one hand, significant bitcoin venture investment continued and
much progress was made in furthering adoption, particularly in bitcoin
payment acceptance by big brand names such as Microsoft and Dell.
On the other hand, early on in 2014, the collapse of Mt Gox dealt a crippling blow to bitcoin’s extraordinary price momentum. Bitcoin’s price dropped 67% in 2014 from $951.39 to $309.87 (Slide 7) and so far in 2015 it has plunged a further 18%.
Overview
Sustained downward price pressure will likely result in consolidation amongst exchanges and other players sensitive to the price of bitcoin.
Trading and transaction volumes continue to increase
Total bitcoin trading volume on exchanges increased by more than 50% in both BTC and USD terms (Slide 8). While bitcoin may have been the worst performing currency in 2014, it also continues to be the most volatile currency, creating opportunities for speculators.
In the fourth quarter, monthly exchange volume surpassed the previous
high in 2013, reaching a peak of around 17 million in November. Daily
bitcoin transactions also passed 100,000
for the first time in the fourth quarter. However, questions linger
over how significant a milestone this is, given uncertainty over how
many of these transactions are bona fide economic activities.
All-time bitcoin startup VC investment crosses $400 million
The fourth quarter saw a record-setting $130m of new venture capital
invested in bitcoin startups – nearly double the $64m raised in third
quarter.
To date, a total of $433m has now been invested in bitcoin startups
since 2012, with 77% of that total ($335m) coming in 2014 alone (Slide 10).
The 2014 publicly disclosed VC investment in bitcoin startups also
equals three times more than the total investment VCs made in bitcoin
startups in 2013.
The number of countries that received VC investment grew from 8 to 18
in 2014, with half of the new countries receiving VC investment in 2014
located in Europe.
Total VC investment in 2014 well exceeded the $250m invested in
first-sequence Internet startups in 1995. Looking ahead to 2015, 83%
respondents of CoinDesk's Bitcoin Thought Leader annual survey expect
bitcoin VC investment in 2015 to surpass the level of investment made in
2014.
The informal Bitcoin Thought Leader survey was sent to a relatively
small number of bitcoin community influentials. Respondees included Gil
Luria, David Yermack, Izabella Kaminska, Jon Matonis, and others.
More commerce and consumer traction
In the fourth quarter, Microsoft became the largest retailer by far to begin accepting bitcoin for payment for Xbox games and mobile content (Slide 47).
CoinDesk is forecasting that the number of merchants accepting
bitcoin will grow to over 140,000 at the end of 2015. However, the rate
of growth in the number of bitcoin-accepting merchants slowed over the
last quarter (Slide 46).
There were 1.4 million new bitcoin wallets created in Q4,
representing 21% growth quarter-over-quarter. CoinDesk is forecasting 12
million total bitcoin wallets by the end of 2015 (Slide 49).
Technology
In the fourth quarter, bitcoin network difficulty declined for first time in two years (Slide 56).
As CoinDesk previously outlined, a drop in difficulty was anticipated given bitcoin’s depressed prices.
With rumours circulating around one previously announced M&A deal
in the mining sector running into trouble, we expect a further shakeout
amongst bitcoin miners should prices remain low or decline further.
Security is the key concern in bitcoin development. Companies across
the ecosystem are collaborating on security to improve customers’
confidence. For example, more than 5% of bitcoins are now secured with
multisig technology.
Regulation and the big picture
The fourth quarter saw some regulatory clarity, with welcomed revisions to the New York 'BitLicense' and no new major regulatory setbacks for bitcoin.
The Bitcoin Thought Leaders survey revealed that international
remittances are viewed as one of the most compelling bitcoin use cases
for 2015. When factoring in average remittance fees, the revised Bitcoin
Market Potential Index reveals that Sub-Saharan Africa is a very
fertile region for bitcoin adoption (Slide 75).
At the same time, Africa is the region where bitcoin has to date received the least regulatory attention (Slide 76). However, very few bitcoin startups are based in Africa or pursuing the use of bitcoin there.
We hope you find the 2015 State of Bitcoin report useful. We'd like
to thank all our readers for making CoinDesk the world’s leading source
of bitcoin news, analysis and perspective, and we welcome your feedback and ideas for possible future improvements.
Sincerely,
The CoinDesk Team
Note: You can access CoinDesk’s full spreadsheet of all bitcoin venture capital deals here.
Disclaimer: This article should not be
viewed as financial advice or an investment recommendation. Please do
your own extensive research before making investment decisions.
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