Bitcoin network tags record high for daily settlement volume

The value settled on the Bitcoin network has been surging recently, reaching a new daily all-time high last week.

Bitcoin’s daily settlement value hit an all-time high on Wednesday, with $31 billion worth of transactions being settled on-chain using the Bitcoin network.

The record high marks an increase in the network’s daily settlement volume of approximately 40 times since the beginning of 2020.

There was $31 billion of value settled on the bitcoin network in a single day last week.This is an all-time high for a single day of settlement value.The global, decentralized payment system continues to become more dominant. (h/t @kerooke) pic.twitter.com/a6Q2FbPY3C

— Pomp (@APompliano) October 10, 2021

According to data from Coin Metrics, daily settlement volume has since pulled back sharply, with the Bitcoin network settling $11.6 billion worth of transactions on Sunday.

On-chain analyst Willy Woo commented on the uptick in activity and settlement value over the weekend, tweeting that the volume of money moving on Bitcoin’s blockchain currently dwarfs that of major centralized payments networks Visa and Mastercard in the United States.

“[The Bitcoin network is] presently doing ~$190k per second. Compare this to $130k per second by Visa for US customers and $55k per second for Mastercard.”

Related: ETH’s trading volume grew much faster than BTC’s in first half of 2021

According to BitInfoCharts, the average value of a transaction executed on the Bitcoin network has also been steadily increasing over the past three months to tag $732,000 — an increase of 273% since the beginning of July.

Chinese media outlet Wu Blockchain has also observed a spike in the number of transactions valued at over $10 million.

Data from Glassnode shows that in the past month, huge transactions (> $10M) on the Bitcoin chain has grown rapidly, with the highest proportion exceeding 70%, setting a record high. pic.twitter.com/RoudvuYGla

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 10, 2021

Ethereum’s daily transfer value is currently $5.3 billion according to Coin Metrics. Ethereum had briefly flipped Bitcoin’s daily settlement volume in early September, but Bitcoin regained its lead within a couple of weeks.