BTC could surpass Visa, Mastercard and PayPal in 10 Years, Research Says

The market for cryptocurrencies has exploded, and despite the bearish streak, their use and volume has grown more than practically any other asset ( either digital or physical) in the same period of time. Bitcoin (BTC) is the cryptocurrency of reference, not only because it is the first token ever created but also because it has the largest marketcap and the most significant community of users and developers in the entire ecosystem.

A recently published study by DataLight concluded that during the bearish streak of 2018, where several cryptocurrencies lost more than 90% of their capitalization, the number of transactions increased considerably, revealing that there is not necessarily a correlation between the price of BTC and its acceptance or popularity among traders and users.

The study indicates that Bitcoin surpassed Visa in the average amount of transactions. However, DataLight decided to compare the results with other payment service providers such as Master Card and PayPal. The results were described as “surprising” and show a rather optimistic outlook for the future:

In 2018 an average Bitcoin transaction volume was 450 times higher than Visa’s average, while the total of $3.4 trillion transferred with Bitcoin in 2018 is 5.8 times higher than such of PayPal …
DataLight experts investigated Bitcoin as a payment system and compared it with the economic indicators of Visa, MasterCard and PayPal provided in their 2018 annual reports.
The results are very surprising.

BTC Win in Some Areas… Could Win in Many More

First, from a positive point of view, the team noted that Bitcoin outperforms PayPal in transaction volume. However, it still lags behind Visa and Mastercard. It is very possible that in the near future, BTC and Master will change positions.

However, they emphasized that according to their research, Bitcoin is a better option for sending large amounts of money, beating Visa not only in processing time but in the lower cost associated with such transactions.

Bitcoin is many thousands of times ahead of the competition in this aspect. Its $40000 is 450 times larger than Visa’s. This tells us that the Bitcoin’s network is more suitable for larger, probably international payments …
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency ever and its code is still imperfect. However, with all of its imperfections it is still many hundred times faster than the existing wire transfers. Bitcoin’s fees are so small that you can transfer millions of dollars for a dozen cents. This is the reason many financial organizations find it so attractive.

They also point out that Bitcoin has a long way to go before we can talk about mass adoption. Its 25 million accounts in 2018 are minimal compared to the more than 5 billion Visa and Mastercard cards available in the world.

The report ends with a rather optimistic prediction, commenting that if Bitcoin maintains the trend of the last ten years, it is very possible that in the next decade it will become the payment method par excellence for society:

“In just 10 years, Bitcoin has managed to compete with the leaders of the payment system industry. Bitcoin’s development is occurring exponentially …
If it maintains this pace, in another 10 years, it will surpass all competition.”