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So far this year, Bitcoin has processed more than $1.3 trillion, placing it ahead of the latest numbers from both PayPal and Discover.

According to cryptocurrency analyst Yassine Elmandjra, who works at New York-based investment firm ARK Invest, too many people are focused on the number of transactions Bitcoin handles each year, instead of looking at the actual dollar amount.

Look 👀 at the transaction *value*, NOT the transaction *volume*. $3-4 B worth of bitcoin has been transacted daily in the last year. At ~ $1.3T annually, Bitcoin’s base layer transactional value is within an order of magnitude away from Visa’s. pic.twitter.com/KhGva4I1rB — Yassine Elmandjra (@yassineARK) August 22, 2018

Bitcoin has a ways to go before catching Visa, which says it processed nearly $9 trillion last year. Unlike PayPal and Bitcoin which can be used to send money peer to peer, Visa’s primary use is to process charges for consumer purchases.

Much of Bitcoin’s transactional value, however, still comes from speculative trading.

Related: Two Bitcoin Bulls Say Mass Adoption Is on the Way in Crypto Game Changer of 2018

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