The past year has been rather interesting for Bitcoin. A lot of things seems to have changed, whereas other aspects have not seen any real adjustment. Looking back one year, it seems Bitcoin is still in a good place. Statistics are provided by BTCRegistry.
The Positive Bitcoin Statistics
As is usually the case where Bitcoin is concerned, no two days are the same. Even when looking back in history, it is often challenging to find similarities. On this day last year, several aspects of Bitcoin looked very different.
Its network hashrate, for example, was nearing the 88 exohash mark. Today, that same hashrate is a fair bit higher, as it climbed to nearly 118 exohash per second. Seeing this increase in mining power is significant, considering how Bitcoin has gone through a block reward halving in the process.
It has to be said that Bitcoin’s hashrate has seen ups and downs in recent months. The peak of 140 exohash has not been reached again, with dips going as low as 110 exohash in recent weeks. A very interesting situation worth keeping an eye on. Miners still show a keen interest in BTC mining, but the overall hashrate seems to be unstable first and foremost.
In terms of the transaction volume per day, last year had a decent number of 161,405 BTC. This number has not changed all that much, although there have been peaks to above 300,000 BTC on a fair few occasions. It is evident that the numbers fluctuate a bit, but sitting between 150,000 BTC and 200,000 BTC per day is more than respectable, given the current circumstances.
Another curious change is the number of transactions per block. Things have certainly improved a lot in this particular department. Last year, the average number of transactions per block sat at 874. Today, it’s well above 2,300. A clear sign of improved network health, even though Bitcoin’s block size has not changed at all. A curious turn of events, yet one that shows SegWit transactions may have begun to make a difference.
What Hasn’t Improved About Bitcoin
Looking at a clear year-to-year comparison, a lot of things haven’t changed favorably. Bitcoin’s market cap today is $2 billion lower compared to what it was a year ago. While this deficit isn’t something to be too concerned about, it shows that Bitcoin has been struggling a fair bit in the past 12 months. Keeping in mind how the supply of Bitcoin has increased, and the market cap is lower, there is a net deficit in BTC price altogether.
Speaking of which, one BTC is currently valued at $10,213.46. On September 6, 2019, that value was $10,461.55. This is quite a big gap, for the world’s leading cryptocurrency. Again, things have looked far worse during the past 12 months, but it is still something to take into account at all times.
The overall number of network transactions is nearly 10% lower compared to a year ago. In the past 24 hours, there were 312,475 network transfers. Last year, there were 352,410. A clear decrease in overall activity, but not an unusual development either. The overall transaction count fluctuates on any cryptocurrency network, thus a 10% difference is not all that unusual.