Bitcoin Has Surpassed Gold in Settlement Volume, Despite Drop in Price

According to a report by CCN based on clearing statistics by the London bullion market (LBMA), the global gold over-the-counter (OTC) market is on pace to settle about $46 billion for 2018. So far this year, the industry has settled less than $30 billion each month. By contrast, the bitcoin market has already processed close to double that, with $848 billion settled so far in 2018 according to Coin Metrics and cryptocurrency data analyst Nic Carter. If this pace keeps up, the world’s leading digital currency by market cap could settle $1.38 trillion by the end of the year. All of this has taken place in spite of the fact that bitcoin’s value has slumped significantly since the beginning of 2018.

LBMA a Major Player

LBMA accounts for more than 70% of the global gold OTC volume. Nonetheless, bitcoin has already settled more value over the first two-thirds of the year than the predicted settlement of the entire gold market for 2018.

As Carter explained, his estimation is…