Bitcoin remains at the forefront of the most disruptive elements of fintech, but sometimes it’s hard to comprehend the sheer amount of bitcoin transactions taking place.

Once used as a way for people engaging in illegal activity to remain off the grid, bitcoin is moving from being a niche pursuit to taking a central role in developments in fintech.

Just last week, Bank of Ireland announced that it was to begin experimenting with blockchain technology to understand and assess how it can fit with the bank’s legacy systems.

UK banking giant Barclays also announced it had entered into a venture with virtual currency player Circle for an e-money licence.

Currently, it’s estimated that there are nearly 8,000 transactions of the cryptocurrency every hour, but for the average person very little is known about how it actually works.

For starters, while many might know of the bitcoin currency, few might have heard about blockchain, a ledger technology used to keep track of every single bitcoin transaction made online that is famed for its accuracy and security.

Bitcoin and physics is a wonderful mix

But, perhaps, to understand how important blockchain technology within the bitcoin universe is, it might be worth checking out this amazing real-time datavis piece created by the folks over at bitbonkers.com.

Once you enter the site, coloured balls – representing different amounts of bitcoin – will fall from the sky on to a square, each of which responds to real physics.

Aside from it raining multicoloured balls, you will also see enormous blocks dropping down as representations of, unsurprisingly, blocks within the blockchain.

The size and number of the block is determined by the number of bytes the blockchain is.

If you want to check out the surprisingly hypnotic sight, then click on the gif below.

Bitcoin coin image via Zach Copley/Flickr

Gigglebit is Siliconrepublic.com’s daily dose of the funny and fantastic in science and tech, to help start your day on a lighter note.