ICT RESEARCH REPORTS Cryptocurrency-Market | Page 2

“Energy required to secure the blockchain, mining difficulty, and their utility fuels the
growth of cryptocurrency market”
Energy is utilized intensively in securing the blockchains. Most popular form, proof of work (POW)
block chain requires significant amount of energy. According to a press release by bitconnect.co,
the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain requires energy equal to a small country for securing payment.
Moreover, increase in blockchain security leads to increase in the mining difficulty. Many other
factors fueling the market growth include the growing inclination of the population towards
digital assets, increasing media reporting, number of investors, and security of the payments
among others. From March 2017 to September 2017, the cryptocurrency market witnessed an
exponential increase of capital to around 599.8%. Moreover, growing awareness and adoption of
digital exchange, is expected to drive the industry growth over the forecast period.
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“Substantially large untapped potential base in the payment industry is expected to
present strong growth prospects over the forecast period”
Increase of the digital currency value in the past was partially influenced by the growing
transaction volumes, specifically for the BTC. BTC generated revenue of around US$ 130 billion in
2016, however transaction volumes are expected to witness considerable surge in the near
future. However, Paypal witnessed volumes of over US$ 735 billion, whereas, Western Union
volumes were recorded approximately 461% higher than BTC, pegged at over US$ 730 billion.
Thus, it can be concluded that the overall utilization of the digital assets as a form of payment is
still at its nascent stage, and expected to hold significant growth in the near future.
“Drawbacks in the scalability and its legalization hindering the market growth”
As of September 2017, the industry is estimated to be valued at around US$ 166 billion
(according to CoinMarketCap), is still too far from actual user penetration. Number of users
participating in the ecosystem is expected to witness considerable surge, led to the increase in
the scalability issues. However, regulations and legalization are expected to be the prominent
factors that will hinder the cryptocurrency market growth. For instance, in 2017, regulations in
China banned the initial coin offerings (ICO) and halted the trading of virtual currencies, mainly
due to the lack of centralized control. However, many other developed and emerging countries
are planning initiatives to legalize these currencies. U.S., Singapore, Russia, and Switzerland are
among the prominent countries that are expected to witness considerable penetration over the
forecast period.