1
Is any data available on the amount of bitcoin used in actual commerce, as opposed to investing in bitcoins, during specified time periods?
(I'm wondering whether the recent increases in dollars-to-bitcoins ration are correlated with amounts used in business via things like BitPay or otherwise.)
2
That's the thing about a pseudonymous digital currency -- there's little information that can be gleamed from the blockchain data.
There are some metrics reported in aggregate by the payment processors and others. For instance, last month BitPay shared during a discussion that they had surpassed 10,000 transactions since their launch over a year earlier. They didn't provide the number of bitcoins as well or give the average amount per-transaction. They are probably the largest payment processor but even that amount is pretty insignificant.
This data will probably be most accurately obtained through user surveys and from there extrapolate.
What about the number of customers that BitPay has? Is anything known to anyone besides BitPay about the specific numbers at the end of each month over the past year? – Michael Hardy – 2013-03-04T16:22:15.873
Related question: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3470/historical-transaction-trade-ratio-available-useful
– Nick ODell – 2013-03-04T02:27:25.803This item gives some recent information from BitPay about the number of their customers and how much money has changed hands through their site recently. Maybe a bit sketchy---e.g. it's not month-by-month or anything like that, but it's more than nothing.
http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20130304006654/en/bitcoin/bitcoins/BitPay