The bitcoin blockchain processed $3.2 trillion in transactions last year. That beats well-known PayPal by far, which had $578 billion in payments volume. And it’s not too far behind the two giants Mastercard ($5.9 trillion) and Visa ($8.2 trillion).
That $3.2 trillion doesn’t even include the volume of the second layer Lightning Network, which grew to more than 5,000 nodes and more than 19,000 channels by the end of 2018. This is great news for Bitcoin.
The Lightning Network is playing a very important role in driving Bitcoin adoption. It is making Bitcoin more accessible and convenient for Joe Average. If Joe Average thinks of Bitcoin as an obscure, hard-to-understand payment method, he will unlikely use it. But if they can make a Bitcoin payment as easily as a PayPal or Mastercard payment, there will be a lot of more Bitcoin users in the future.
Sven Franssen