Interest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in 2020 was seemingly higher in Africa and Latin America than some of the world's developed economies. This shows after analyzing Bitcoin trading volume against domestic currencies used for the transaction of the digital coin. In 2020, roughly 420 million U.S. dollars worth of Russian rubles were used to buy Bitcoin on an exchange, against 400 million U.S. dollars worth of Nigerian naira. The source assumes the currencies are mainly used by the domestic population - e.g. transactions made with British pounds are likely done by UK residents -, and makes the same assumption for the United States, despite the international appeal of the U.S. dollar on foreign exchange markets.

Africa and Latin America lead the way

Although the source does not mention all countries in Africa and Latin America, the few entries these regions do have in the list stand out. Bitcoin trading volume in Nigeria, for instance, was twice as high as that of the eurozone in 2020. Colombia's market size was twice that of Canada. Whether this interest is for actual payment use on a day-to-day basis or as a tool for investment is not really clear. Data from Statista's Global Consumer Survey on payment methods in Egypt reveals that eight percent of Egyptians either owned or used Bitcoin, but does not specify the exact use or purpose of the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin: the "Renaissance"

Believed by some to fade into obscurity after hitting the news in 2017 and price declines that followed afterwards, the world's most well-known cryptocurrency witnessed a "rebirth" at the end of 2020: Within five days in January 2021, the price of Bitcoin soared from 30,000 U.S. dollars to 40,000 U.S. dollars. Bitcoin's market cap - calculated by multiplying the total number of Bitcoins in circulation against its price - grew as well, more than doubling in early January 2021 against November 2020

Bitcoin's blockchain size was close to reaching 5450 gigabytes in 2024, as the database saw exponential growth by nearly one gigabyte every few days. The Bitcoin blockchain contains a continuously growing and tamper-evident list of all Bitcoin transactions and records since its initial release in January 2009. Bitcoin has a set limit of 21 million coins, the last of which will be mined around 2140, according to a forecast made in 2017. Bitcoin mining: A somewhat uncharted world Despite interest in the topic, there are few accurate figures on how big Bitcoin mining is on a country-by-country basis. Bitcoin's design philosophy is at the heart of this. Created out of protest against governments and central banks, Bitcoin's blockchain effectively hides both the country of origin and the destination country within a (mining) transaction. Research involving IP addresses placed the United States as the world's most Bitcoin mining country in 2022 - but the source admits IP addresses can easily be manipulated using VPN. Note that mining figures are different from figures on Bitcoin trading: Africa and Latin America were more interested in buying and selling BTC than some of the world's developed economies. Bitcoin developments Bitcoin's trade volume slowed in the second quarter of 2023, after hitting a noticeable growth at the beginning of the year. The coin outperformed most of the market. Some attribute this to the announcement in June 203 that BlackRock filed for a Bitcoin ETF. This iShares Bitcoin Trust was to use Coinbase Custody as its custodian. Regulators in the United States had not yet approved any applications for spot ETFs on Bitcoin.

Total cryptocurrency losses were valued at over 15 billion U.S. dollars between 2021 and 2024, although most of these came from early in the period mentioned. This is according to data from web 3 crowdsourced security platform Immunefi. While the source does not clearly state how it estimated its figures, it claims most losses occurred in Q2 2021 - citing the fraud cases of Africrypt, with a 3.5 billion U.S. dollar loss, and Thodex, with a two billion U.S. dollar loss. Much like the annual value of cryptocurrency losses from REKT Database, Immunefi seems to rely on publicly available data, and community reporting. This is not unusual for digital assets, as they are decentralized - meaning these are not tracked "officially" by government or regulatory bodies.