Posted on

Crypto Payments Soared To Unprecedented Levels In 2023, CoinGate Report Reveals

The year 2023 witnessed a remarkable surge in crypto payments, signaling a significant milestone in adopting digital currencies for retail and e-commerce transactions. 

According to a recent report by CoinGate, a crypto payment processor firm, the number of crypto payments processed reached staggering heights, showcasing robust growth and diversification in the crypto landscape. 

Massive Surge In Crypto Payments

In 2023, CoinGate processed an astounding 1,294,058 cryptocurrency payments, marking a 39.4% increase compared to the previous record. This exponential growth, equivalent to one payment every 24 seconds, underscores the accelerating pace of crypto adoption. 

Notably, approximately one-third (32.35%) of all transactions processed by CoinGate in the last ten years occurred in 2023, emphasizing the surge in the popularity of digital currencies.

Per the report, integrating Binance Pay wallet into CoinGate’s payment services in March 2023 played a significant role in driving this growth. 

Crypto

Binance Pay accounted for 8.2% of all crypto payments in 2023, showcasing a steady increase in usage throughout the year. This upward trend, from 4.5% in March to 13% in December, indicates the growing adoption and usage of Binance Pay as a preferred payment method.

Lightning Network Surges In Popularity

Moreover, CoinGate’s report highlights the increasing maturity and acceptance of the Lightning Network, an essential component of Bitcoin payments. 

In 2023, the Lightning Network facilitated 7.8% of all Bitcoin payments processed by CoinGate, representing a notable increase from previous years. 

Furthermore, the overall number of Lightning Network payments grew by 35.9% compared to the previous year, indicating a growing reliance on this technology. 

However, Bitcoin, long considered the dominant cryptocurrency for payments, saw a decline in its share of total transactions processed by CoinGate. While Bitcoin accounted for 54.8% of all transactions in 2021, its share dropped to 35.6% in 2023. 

Stablecoins, particularly Tether’s USDT, emerged as a popular choice for crypto payments in 2023. The usage of USDT increased from 15.1% in 2022 to an average of 25.4% in 2023, indicating a shift towards stablecoins due to their perceived stability and reliability. 

Alternative Payment Solutions 

According to CoinGate’s report, crypto-friendly merchants experienced remarkable success in 2023, with a significant portion of their sales attributed to cryptocurrency payments. 

Eldorado.gg, a gold and accounts marketplace for gamers, reported crypto payments contributing to 3% of their total sales. IPRoyal, a proxy service provider, saw over 30% of their payments made in cryptocurrencies. 

Hostinger, a web hosting provider, captured nearly one-fourth of all crypto-paying customers, showcasing the effectiveness of alternative payment solutions in catering to diverse customer needs.

Overall, 2023 demonstrated a paradigm shift in the adoption of cryptocurrency payments. The surge in transactions processed by CoinGate, the increasing usage of Binance Pay and the Lightning Network, and the diversification of cryptocurrencies used for payments all point towards a new era of acceptance and trust in digital currencies. 

As crypto-friendly merchants reap the benefits of embracing these payment methods, it becomes evident that cryptocurrency payments offer sales growth, solutions for the unbanked population, and global accessibility. 

With the stage set for further expansion in 2024, the transformative power of cryptocurrency payments continues to reshape the retail and e-commerce landscape.

Crypto

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com 

Posted on

Binance 2023 Report Reveals: 40 Million New Users Added, Total Registered Users Reach 170 Million

In its recently released 2023 review report, Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, showcased significant growth despite facing legal disputes and regulatory scrutiny. 

The report highlighted the evolving crypto market, increasing institutional interest, and the company’s commitment to compliance and user experience.

Binance’s 2023 Review

Despite a volatile year for the market, Binance emphasized that digital asset regulation had taken a direction toward greater clarity and harmonization in some regions. 

The exchange acknowledged the challenges but noted that Web3 adoption and institutional interest continued to grow steadily, demonstrating the industry’s resilience and long-term potential.

Regarding growth within the company, Binance Square, formerly known as Binance Feed, was introduced as a social platform designed to be the central hub for Web3 content. 

According to the report, the platform experienced substantial growth, expanding from 1,200 to 11,000 creators and attracting over 1.6 million active daily users. Binance Square aimed to facilitate conversations and enable users to generate “compelling content,” fostering engagement within the Web3 community.

In October, Binance Futures launched its Copy Trading feature, allowing users to replicate the trading strategies of expert lead traders. This feature provided a monetization avenue for trading experts and added a social aspect to the trading experience of the platform users.

Binance

Furthermore, Binance continued its support of fiat currencies, reaching 69 supported fiat currencies with 30 fiat channels available globally. 

Binance P2P, the peer-to-peer trading platform, expanded the number of supported payment methods to 970 and fiat currencies to 112. The report highlights that the platform facilitated 18% more trades with 39% more users than the previous year.

The report further noted Binance’s commitment to compliance, with a significant investment of $213 million in its compliance program, a 35% increase from the previous year. 

Binance allocated substantial resources to develop in-house compliance tools, including a case management system and an internal transaction monitoring engine. 

Is Binance Leading The Way In Crypto Venture Funding?

Per the report, in 2023, Binance focused on enhancing user experience by partnering with localized KYC (know-your-customer) vendors and implementing various electronic ID (eID) solutions globally. 

The exchange added support for 298 new ID and proof-of-address documents across 64 countries, streamlining the onboarding process for users.

To make Web3 “more accessible,” the report notes that Binance launched its Web3 Wallet, which aims to provide a “secure” gateway into the world of decentralized finance (DeFi). The platform aimed to address usability barriers and attract new users by offering improved product and user experience across DeFi, blockchain gaming, and SocialFi.

Ultimately, while the crypto venture funding market faced challenges in 2023, Binance Labs emerged as one of the most active participants in the crypto venture capital (VC) space, particularly in the DeFi and Web3 gaming sectors, according to the exchange.

Overall, Binance’s 2023 Review Report highlights the company’s focus on compliance, user experience, and expanding Web3 offerings as key to continued growth despite ongoing legal issues and regulatory enforcement actions.

Binance

As of the current update, Binance Coin (BNB) demonstrates a significant upward trend in price action, surging to $330. This surge represents a 21% increase over the past seven days.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com 

Posted on

Binance Smart Chain User Activity Tanks, Why BNB Price Could Suffer

BNB Price has been seeing a lot of declines since Binance came under fire for the audit published by Mazars. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) had spread like wildfire, leading to more than $5 billion in withdrawals from the crypto exchange. Nevertheless, Binance was able to withstand the onslaught and amid all of this, activity on the Binance Smart Chain has fallen drastically, painting a bearish picture for the BNB price.

Binance Chain Activity Drops By 15%

Last week, there had been a lot of activity on the Binance Smart Chain which saw daily active addresses climb as high as 1.2 million at the start of the weekend. However, as the new week is ushered in, this metric has taken a swift beating and the number of daily active addresses has declined dramatically.

Data from YCharts show that in the last 24 hours, Binance Smart Chain active addresses were down by more than 15.70%. This showed a complete reversal in the high usage recorded between Friday and Saturday when activity on the chain had surpassed all other blockchains. Currently, the number sits at 947,414 daily active addresses on the blockchain. So from Friday to now, active addresses are down by more than 150,000. 

BNB Price

New unique addresses per day were also down during this time and are down by 15.27% in the 24-hour period. Likewise, transactions per day also took a beating, falling 15.27% during this time while transaction fees realized on the network declined by 10.86%.

Interestingly, the daily active BEP-20 addresses on the Binance Smart Chain saw the most upside for the time period with a 9.84% growth, as well as the BSC average transaction fee seeing a 6.58% rise to $0.1457 per transaction.

How Will BNB Price Respond?

At the start of the weekend when activity on the Binance Smart Chain had begun to surge, there was a notable increase in the BNB price during this time. The digital asset had clocked a local peak of $264 on Friday before active addresses had begun to lose momentum.

BNB price chart from TradingView.com

By Saturday, the more than 100,000 declines in daily active addresses were followed by a sharp drop in the price of BNB. This drop to the $220 territory showed a correlation between the activity on the blockchain and the price of the coin.

If the cryptocurrency were to keep up with this trend, then BNB’s price could see a possible decline today. However, just like the weekend, such a decline would only be temporary and a sharp recovery will expectedly follow not much later. Another 10% drop from current prices will see the digital asset revisit the $220 territory once more.

BNB is changing hands at a price of $246 at the time of this writing. It’s down 0.49% in the last day and 12.37% in the last week, according to data from Coinmarketcap.