Bitcoin Is Increasingly Interested, Retail Traders Start Receiving BTC

Bitcoin is starting to be used as a means of payment in various stores. (Photo; Doc. Pexels)

JAKARTA - Bitcoin, the world's most popular cryptocurrency, increasingly shows its existence as a global tender and future investment. Bitcoin, which currently has a market value of around $922 billion (Rp14.3 quadrillion), is the main driver of the development of other crypto industries.

Many companies are starting to adopt Bitcoin to improve their performance and business growth. One of the factors driving Bitcoin's mass adoption is improving the crypto regulatory framework in various countries.

Several countries have even given Bitcoin official status as legal tender, such as El Salvador which adopted Bitcoin along with the US dollar in September 2021. This has led many traders in the country to start accepting Bitcoin from their customers.

The latest data from BTC Map, an open-source project that provides a map of the location of traders receiving Bitcoin, shows that the number of Bitcoin traders worldwide increased 174 percent in 2023, reaching around 9,926 traders.

Of these, about 5,535 stores received Bitcoin payments directly (on-chain), while 5,107 traders received Bitcoin payments via the Lightning Network.

Lightning Network is a protocol that allows Bitcoin transactions to take place faster, cheaper and safer. This network can also increase Bitcoin scalability, namely the ability to handle large transaction volumes.

Based on the BTC Map map, most of the merchants who demand Bitcoin are in Latin America, North America, and Europe. In Asia, the Philippines is the country with the highest number of Bitcoin traders in Southeast Asia, followed by Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Meanwhile, among the BRICS member countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), Brazil and South Africa have more Bitcoin traders than Russia, India, and China.

On the other hand, according to a survey conducted by Statista, there were more than 425 million crypto users worldwide by 2023. The survey also shows that Nigeria, Vietnam, and the Philippines are the three countries with the highest percentage of crypto users, 32%, 21%, and 20%, respectively. The survey illustrates that crypto, particularly Bitcoin, has become part of the lifestyle of modern society.