



Now that Bitcoin has passed $4,100 USD per token, it’s worth looking back to the first time that Bitcoin entered the $4000 USD range. While less of an achievement today, comparing Bitcoin’s recent fundamentals to those in August 2017 reveals some interesting development patterns.

No significant change in the number of unique addresses





One figure worth considering is the amount of unique wallet addresses engaging with Bitcoin in a given 24-hour period. This metric is defined as the total number of unique addresses used on the Bitcoin blockchain, and can be used to present a rough idea of how many people are engaging with a cryptocurrency at a specific point in time.





On March 29, 2019, the Bitcoin blockchain housed around 517,101 unique wallet addresses. Due to differing price charts and markets, pinpointing the exact date that Bitcoin first broke $4,100 USD is not a perfect process. According to CoinMarketCap, and headlines at the time, August 13, 2017 seems like a safe bet.





Comparing Bitcoin’s 517,000 unique wallet addresses on March 29 to the same figure on August 13, 2017, shows little change. Back then, the number of unique addresses used on the Bitcoin blockchain was 516,470.

Tweets about Bitcoin decreased almost 59%





Since cryptocurrencies are inherently part of a digital movement, social media platforms like Twitter remain a popular platform for discussion. On March 29, 2019, “#Bitcoin” was included in 19,794 tweets, according to BitInfoCharts.





In comparison, there were 47,827 #Bitcoin tweets on August 13, 2017. This marks a decrease of nearly 59%.

Confirmed transactions per day are up over 40%





At present, there seem to be significantly more confirmed Bitcoin transactions occurring each day then there were when Bitcoin first broke $4,100 USD.





According to Blockchain.com, there were 369,817 confirmed Bitcoin transactions on March 29, 2019. In comparison, the site says that 263,310 Bitcoin transactions were confirmed on August 13, 2017. These findings show a 40% increase in the number of daily Bitcoin transactions.

Bitcoin’s daily transaction value marginally decreased





Relatively speaking, Bitcoin handled a significant daily transaction volume on March 29 of this year. According to Blockchain.com, the estimated USD value of the network’s transactions was over 812 million. However, this is somewhat of an outlier. The previous day, the network handled 627 million USD worth of transactions.





Regardless, either number is a significant decrease from the estimated $926 million USD worth of transactions that Bitcoin handled back when it first broke the $4,100 USD mark.

Transaction fees decreased around 76%





According to BitInfoCharts, the average Bitcoin transaction fee on August 13, 2017 was around $2.91 USD. Today this fee has decreased significantly.





On March 29, 2019, the average cost per Bitcoin transaction was just 70~ cents. This can be attributed to factors such as improved transaction handling methods, scaling solutions such as the Lightning Network, and Bitcoin’s current level of network activity.









