The River exchange platform has published a very interesting report on Bitcoin. We are at the very beginning of a pace of adoption similar to that of the Internet.
Bitcoin vs Internet
The world adopts Bitcoin faster than any other asset, despite current turbulence on the Crypto market. Here is a series of data gathered by River to understand that we are only in the infancy.
For example, the number of companies listed on the stock market that has adopted Bitcoin remains less than 1 %. The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ have only 2 and 3 companies that have made Bitcoin their main treasury actors respectively.
It is estimated that 18 countries have Bitcoin. Most get them by mining. This is the case of Bhutan, Salvador, Iran, Oman or Ethiopia. Others obtained them via seizures in criminal cases (China, USA, UK). Some like the United Arab Emirates buy it directly.
“Given the increased geopolitical uncertainty and the global tendency to abandon American treasury bills as a reserve assets, it is possible that at least a G20 country announces to hold bitcoins for strategic purposes in the next four years”,, esteem river.
“If the dollar remains the undisputed global reserve currency […]countries like Russia have started using alternative currencies, including Bitcoin, for international trade. ”
Ultimately, many will depend on the United States where senator Cynthia Lummis is hard at work to convince the Congress to buy between one and five million BTC … River believes, however, that the probability of such a scenario is “weak”.
River, on the other hand, believes that it is likely that the Congress vote in favor of an exemption from the capital gains for small payments of less than $ 200.
We will see if Donald Trump takes the risk of buying between 5 % and 20 % of bitcoins in order to erase part of the debt in a few years.
The best is to come
According to River, the adoption of bitcoin is only “3 % of its full potential”. Three main indicators allow you to arrive at this figure:
- The $ 225,000 billion still allocated to assets that Bitcoin could replace. In particular gold, prestigious real estate, art, cash, etc. River believes that Bitcoin could siphon 25 % of the wealth currently invested in other assets.
- The under-investment of investment funds. The 128,000 billion dollars managed by American professional investors are only allocated 0.0006 % in Bitcoin. The scholarship is still the lion's share with 53 %, followed by business (12.5 %) and states (10 %) bonds.
- Less than 4 % of the world's population holds BTC. It is 14 % in the United States, 6.6 % in South America and only 3.4 % in Europe.
The bullish potential remains immense …
In the long term, River expects one bitcoin to be worth several tens of millions of dollars and that it replaces the dollar as an international reserve currency. An opinion shared by your servant.
Bitcoin vs Gold & Dollar
The report underlines that in 2024, thanks to “Halving”, Bitcoin became more difficult to obtain than gold!
The Halving refers to the part of the protocol which, every four years, divides by two the rate of emission of the BTC. It created around 900 a day before April 2024, against 450 today.
Meanwhile, the quantity of dollars in circulation increased by 3.7 % (it is rather 7 % on average). This increase was 2 % for gold in 2024 and only 0.85 % for bitcoin.
So that after 18 years of existence, more than 94 % of the 21 million bitcoins have already been issued. There are precisely 19.82 million BTC in circulation when writing these lines.
These bitcoins are mainly held by individuals (70 %). Then come the ETFs like that of BlackRock with 6 % of BTCs. Companies such as Strategy (formerly Microstrategy) hold 4.4 % and is 1.4 % for states. It is estimated that almost 10 % of BTCs are lost forever.
These figures could highly evolve in 2025 if the United States actually decided to buy 20 % of BTCs as recommended Michael Saylor. Wait and See …
How has the network evolved, technically?
Regarding the protocol, 115 developers stammered the code actively in the past year. They made more than 2,500 proposals aimed at modifying the code and it was a total of 276,000 lines of code that have been retouched.
Thirteen patrons finance these developers, including three new arrivals in 2024. Good news for the decentralization of the network. Note for example Blockstream, Brink, Spiral, etc.
The year 2024 was marked by numerous proposals aimed at modifying the protocol. However, the emergence of “inscriptions” (Ordinal, BTC-20, etc.) froze several initiatives because of the disagreements they have caused within the community.
As long as the developers and the community in the broad sense have not found consensus, the probability, the calendar and the implementation of the proposed changes will remain uncertain.
Most proposals aim to increase the number of people who can take possession of their bitcoins. Except that the figures show that it is absolutely not a priority, hence the status quo.
Not your keys, not your corners!
Decentralization of bitcoin
Decentralization is based on a network of nodes and minors. The first were 21,700 in the end of 2024, an increase of 11 % from one year to the next.
Bitcoin Core is the version of the protocol installed by 98 % of nodes. One of the competing customers is “Knot”. His recent success is due to the fact that his “filters” have been updated to prevent inscriptions from images and other unwanted arbitrary data in the blockchain. It was the Drama of 2024 …
The decentralization of minors is also increasing. While they were mainly in China just a few years ago, we now find a lot in the United States (36 %), Russia (16 %), the United Arab Emirates (3.75 %) or in Paraguay (3 %). The Middle Empire is now in third position with 14 % of the hashrate.
The network's calculation power increases on average by 107 % per year since 2016. It was +55 % in 2024. We are very close to the 800 Exehash! In other words, minors perform 800 billion billion calculations per second.
All that said, only 9 countries have more than 1 % of the hashrate and barely 28 countries have more than 0.1 %. Finally, note that the share of the hashrate managed by listed companies increased by 11 %, going to 35.2 %.
Another even more important data: the concentration of pools. There is better since the share of the three largest pools has decreased. However, it remains very uncomfortably greater than 60 %.
The concentration of pools is a threat because it is they who choose the transactions that go in the blocks. The risk being that certain transactions are censored. This has already happened.
River's report also speaks of other subjects such as Lightning Network growth. On this subject, do not miss our article Bitcoin: This network that changes everything.
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