Recent data indicate bitcoin ownership is increasingly evenly split among short-term speculators and market participants willing to hold the largest digital currency for long periods of time.
Related: Noted Bitcoin Bull Trims Price Forecast
Investors’ reluctance to embrace bitcoin as a long-term investment is tied to, among issues, concerns that prices are manipulated, security on cryptocurrency exchanges, lack of liquidity and high transaction costs.
“Cryptocurrencies cannot scale. The Visa payment network is capable of supporting 24,000 transactions per second (tps) at peak rates and regularly averages in the region of 1,500 tps. Bitcoin, meanwhile, struggles to achieve a transaction rate over 10 tps, while bitcoin cash can handle around 60 tps. The only cryptocurrency which comes close to Visa’s average is Ripple, which is capable of 1,500 tps,” said Global Data.
For more information on the cryptocurrency market, visit our Bitcoin category.