Bundesbank expert Dr Paolo Tasca about the Bitcoin market

Bitcoin expert Dr Paolo Tasca (PhD) is a financial economist for the Deutsche Bundesbank specialized in P2P financial systems and systemic risk. I talked to him at Bitcoin Wednesday, a monthly Conference on Digital Currency in The Netherlands.

He presented his research A Market Analysis of Cryptocurrencies about what is happening in the world of Bitcoin. He researched 8 facts. Bitcoin is small but it has the highest average transaction size of all the networks. It is not used for micropayments a lot but its popular for the bigger numbers you have to send between different countries due to the low costs. It’s still not a very big network. In comparison to VISA that transfers 20 billion USD a day, Bitcoin transfers about 60 million each day.

Bitcoin exchanges and the black market

Dr Paolo Tasca looked at 70 million wallets. The most active wallets are the ones from BTC exchanges like Kraken and the wallets from the black market and gambling industry. China is dominating the Bitcoin market. 33% of the transactions happen in China and also the most active miners are Chinese.

Is Bitcoin ready for the serious work?

So is Bitcoin ready for the serious work or will there be a new digital currency that will be popular in the whole society? Or is the technology (blockchain) more important than the Bitcoin currency itself? According to Dr. Paolo Tasca it is too early to say whether the Bitcoin will be extremely popular or not. But the blockchain technology is super interesting and opens the door for new technologies.

More Bitcoin events

This year there will be another Bitcoin Congres in The Netherlands, we are going to announce the exact date very soon.

Next week on Wednesday evening March 9. there is a Bitcoin event in Dutch called Miniconferentie Blockchain & grenzeloos zakendoen. You can register here.  For the people that work for the Dutch (Rijks)overheid there is a conference during the day as well, click here for more info.