• Despite several market headwinds, the Bitcoin blockchain processed over $8.2 trillion last year which is $260,000 every second.
• The Bitcoin network processed 33% more in transaction value when compared to VISA and three times more than MasterCard.

2022 wasn’t quite exciting for Bitcoin investors across the world as the world’s largest cryptocurrency plummeted by over 60% in one of the most brutal market crashes in the history of crypto.

However, the Bitcoin blockchain network still managed to hit a few key milestones in terms of transaction value during 2022. During the last year, a staggering $8.2 trillion in value was transferred over the Bitcoin blockchain. As per the data shared by crypto analytics firm CoinMetrics, this data turns out to be $260,000 per second.

This magnitude of transactions despite the bear market highlights Bitcoin’s significant jump in adoption as well as its role in the global financial system. But, the data also shows that during the second half of 2022, the total number of transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain plunged significantly during the second half of the year.

This was specifically the time when the cryptocurrency market witnessed some of the biggest bankruptcies in the history of the crypto market. It all started with the fall of the Terra ecosystem in May which triggered the downfall of popular crypto lenders like Voyager and Celsius.

Furthermore, the crypto market faced a double-whammy in November with the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX which resulted in massive withdrawals and drying up of liquidity from the market. This had a direct impact on investor participation in the market which went downhill and as a result, Bitcoin transactions also tanked significantly.

Bitcoin Beats VISA and Mastercard

Despite all the hurdles in place, the world’s largest crypto Bitcoin managed to outperform two of the largest payments processing networks – VISA and Mastercard. During the last year of 2022, VISA processed less than $6 trillion in total value while than of Mastercard was $2.5 trillion.

It means that the Bitcoin network processed 33% more in transaction value, in comparison to VISA. Similarly, it processed more than three times the total transaction value processed by Mastercard.

Bitcoin is slowly emerging as one of the biggest challengers to some of the biggest payment systems. However, these traditional payment systems are expected to increase their transaction values in the subsequent years. Thus, Bitcoin here has a big challenge to undertake in order to keep up with the competition.

The world’s largest crypto Bitcoin (BTC) has had a good start to the year 2023 so far jumping more than 33% this month. However, Bitcoin still continues to face the macro challenges of higher inflation and uncertainty with the Federal Reserve Monetary policy.