It’s been a rough 2018 for Bitcoin despite hitting record numbers a year ago. The overall price of one Bitcoin has dropped substantially from earlier this year. That said, there are some recent milestones and trends that may be encouraging news for proponents of the digital currency.
The Daily HODL reported on Sunday that even in a market downturn, there are now more than 30 million blockchain wallet users. That’s an increase from the 28 million reported back in September. It’s been a steady growth in the number of wallet users around the world ever since Bitcoin first started in 2009. A Blockchain website chart illustrates that the number of wallet users was over 20 million one year ago.
A few other encouraging online milestones or trends point to Bitcoin still receiving some interest online. One of those is an active Bitcoin subreddit community “r/bitcoin” which just reached the one million subscriber mark. In addition to that, Google Trends is showing that more people around the world have been looking up “bitcoin” when compared to popular singers “ariana grande” or “beyonce” in searches.
Meanwhile, one exchange, BitMEX is looking at strong numbers for their cryptocurrency trading. The Hong Kong-based exchange has almost hit $2 billion in trading just in the past 24 hours. Their Bitcoin futures product XBTUSD is a large chunk of that total at $1.88 billion, per CoinMarketCap data.
The BitMEX exchange reportedly saw almost $1 trillion in terms of total crypto trading volume in the past year. In addition, just the past 30 days have seen over $90 billion in trading volume, showing the strength of the exchange and that cryptocurrency isn’t quite dead like some reports are suggesting.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency investors or proponents are hoping that they’ll see encouraging numbers for Bitcoin and other altcoins in the next several weeks, or a better 2019. After reaching a low on Coinbase of around $3,200, Bitcoin has climbed back up near $3,700 as of earlier on Sunday, December 9th. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) is still trading below $100, while Litecoin (LTC) is at $25.63 as of this report.
