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Any official study conducted related to cryptocurrencies is worth keeping an eye on. While they don’t always tell the whole story, the statistics are fun to look at. A new study by Cambridge University shows how the cryptocurrency ecosystem has evolved. More specifically, it shows this is still a very niche market right now. That isn’t a big surprise by any means, though. In fact, the statistics are pretty intriguing overall.
According to Cambridge University, there are up to 5.8 million unique cryptocurrency wallet users. That is still a very small number, although these statistics may not be entirely correct. More specifically, this study surveys data from different companies and individuals. However, it was only conducted on a very small scale. Considering how different cryptocurrencies were part of this survey, that number seems a lot lower than one would think.
An Interesting Study on Cryptocurrency
Additionally, we see a lot of cryptocurrency companies operate across different sectors. This means we see more all-round cryptocurrency companies as a whole. Most exchanges also offer a wallet service or even a mining pool. This shows there is a growing demand for more complete services, albeit in a centralized manner. That isn’t necessarily a positive development whatsoever, unfortunately. It will be interesting to see how companies continue to evolve in the coming years.
Speaking of exchanges, over half of smaller platforms hold a formal government license. That is a pretty small number, but it’s even worse for large companies. Of those larger exchanges, only 35% have a license. Again, this is not a complete study of the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem whatsoever. However, it shows licensing is still a bit of a problem for most platforms. Security budgets are another difficult topic, as 17% of company’s budgets is spent on keeping funds safe. Given the vast amount of exchange hacks, one would expect better figures in this department.
As one would expect, banking relationships remain a pressing problem. The majority of payment companies struggles to obtain or maintain this relationship. That is not entirely surprising at this point in time either, unfortunately. Most of the volume generated by these companies are national-to-cryptocurrency payments. Surprisingly, crypto-to-crypto payments only account for 6% of all volume. That is a fair bit lower than most people would have expected at this point in time. Them again, that is what exchanges are for, as well as services such as ShapeShift.
