Key facts:
Bitcoin also surpassed Discover in payments processed during 2021.
Compared to 2020, Bitcoin transaction volume grew 239% last year.
The cryptocurrency investment firm New York Digital Group (NYDIG) revealed in a report on the payment networks of the main credit cards, that the total volume of Bitcoin transactions in 2021 exceeded the volume of annual payments processed by American Express. NYDIG reported that Bitcoin processed $3.007 trillion in payments, placing well above American Express ($1.3 trillion) and Discover ($0.5 trillion).
The volume processed by Bitcoin in 2021, however, lagged behind the volumes of the leading credit cards in the market, Visa ($13.5 trillion) and Mastercard ($7.7 trillion), it notes. the study. Some of the credit card turnover has been tied more to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Visa reported on January 27 a considerable growth in expenses made using prepaid credit cards with cryptocurrencies, a fact commented by CriptoNoticias. In the last quarter of 2021 alone, that figure exceeded USD 2.5 billion.
“This is amazing growth, in our opinion, for a payment network that has just reached its 13th anniversary,” says NYDIG. The firm adds that major credit cards have several decades of history. Visa was launched in 1958 and in the same year the first American Express card was released. Mastercard and Discovery were launched, respectively, in 1966 and 1985, the report says.
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As can be seen in the following table, in addition to the fact that Bitcoin is placed in third place among the payment networks of the main credit cards, its annual growth is much higher than that of conventional payment processors.
From 2020 to 2021, payments processed by Bitcoin went from $886 million to $3.007 billion, which is more than triple, or a growth of 239%. In comparison, the annual growth of Visa and Mastercard were 18.7% and 21.9%, respectively.
If these growth rates are maintained by 2022, Bitcoin could overtake Mastercard in transaction volume this year. Although Visa would exceed USD 16 billion by growing 18.7% this year, Bitcoin would exceed USD 10 billion this year, if it registers a boom similar to that of 2021. Mastercard, for its part, even growing 21.9% this year, would reach a transaction volume of USD 9.41 billion.
A Blockdata report published last November and commented on by CriptoNoticias, also established the comparison of the volume processed by Bitcoin in 2021, compared to Visa and Mastercard. Among the report’s findings, Blockdata highlighted that it was quite notorious that a payment network like Bitcoin, barely 12 years old, would have achieved 27% of the volume of Mastercardwhich was created in 1966. This performance becomes more remarkable when considering the decentralized nature of Bitcoin.
