Juniper Research Thinks There Will Be $1 Trillion In Crypto Transaction Value By Year's End

The total number of global cryptocurrency transactions will surpass the $1 trillion mark in 2017, according to a new study by Juniper Research. To put the explosive growth in cryptocurrency in perspective, $1 trillion of transactions is roughly 15 times the total number of transactions registered in 2016.

Bitcoin, Ethereum and the long and growing list of other cryptocurrencies are now accounting for more than $2 billion in daily transaction volume.

Bitcoin remains the gold standard in cryptocurrency, with a current market cap of more than $76 billion even after a split with Bitcoin Cash in August. With bitcoin nearly tripling in value since the beginning of the year, researcher Dr. Windsor Holden says the bitcoin community may be currency’s biggest obstacle at this point.

“There is no resolution in sight to the continuing and fundamental disagreements between many Bitcoin miners and Bitcoin Core developers over the future of the cryptocurrency,” Holden wrote in the report. “This in turn could lead to uncertainty about Bitcoin’s future and downward pressure on its valuation.”

Bitcoin is set for a second planned fork in November.

Bitcoin rival Ethereum accounted for a surprising two-thirds of total cryptocurrency transaction value in the first half of 2017. Huge price gains now have Ethereum’s market cap above $31 billion.

Juniper reports that Litecoin, the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has also experienced a surge in popularity and should account for more than $100 billion in total transactions in 2017.

Despite the huge growth numbers cryptocurrencies are putting up, there are still plenty of skeptics out there. Earlier this week, Citron Research short seller Andrew Left reiterated his short thesis on the Bitcoin Investment Trust GBTC and said the trust is overvalued by more than 50 percent.

Related Link: Citron Compares Bitcoin To Other Commodity Trusts, Still Sees Big Downside To GBTC