Bitcoin will be ahead of other payment systems, such as Visa and MasterCard, within ten years, if the growth of the network continues at the same pace.
DataLight made such a forecast in a study comparing Bitcoin with traditional payment systems, which also included PayPal, noting the rapid development of cryptocurrency since its inception in 2009.
“In just 10 years, Bitcoin has been able to compete with the leaders of the payment system industry. The development of the network is taking place exponentially”, the company concluded. “If the pace of development continues, then in 10 years Bitcoin will surpass all competitors.”
Researchers at DataLight also note that, despite current technical obstacles, Bitcoin will become the main payment network in the world.
"Now the Bitcoin payment system is far superior to conventional international payments and bank transfers", the researchers note. "Technical improvement of the network will almost certainly make it the main payment system in the world."
Even though in some areas, such as bandwidth, Bitcoin lags behind traditional players in the industry, the network wins in other directions, for example, in terms of average transaction size. In 2018, it was $ 41,615, compared with $ 90 for Visa, $ 80 for MasterCard and $ 58 for PayPal. This indicates the convenience of using Bitcoin as a method of transferring large amounts.
Researchers at DataLight noted the benefits of Bitcoin decentralization, which boasts over 10,000 "data centers" - or nodes - supporting its network, compared to 119, 98 and 51 for Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, respectively. The number of Bitcoin addresses currently stands at 25 million, which is significantly less than the number of credit and debit cards in circulation, but the average capitalization of each “account” is also ahead of existing payment networks.
In February of this year, the analytical company DataLight published another study related to the cryptocurrency industry. At that time, the company declared that on the main cryptocurrency exchanges the most active are traders from the USA.