The University of Cambridge, England, released a report in which it analyzed the impact of changes in the crypto market in recent years.
The study provides new insights into the state of the cryptocurrency industry, and gathered data from 280 companies in 59 countries, across four market segments: exchange, payments, custody and mining.
The first data observed was that the number of cryptocurrency users grew 189% in two years.
Compared to 2016, the number is much higher. There are currently around 101 million cryptocurrency users, while 5 years ago there were only 5 million.
In this period, the number of portfolios also increased significantly. From 45 million to 195 million registered portfolios.
In contrast, the report showed that the number of full-time employee layoffs increased after the 2017 bull run and ICO Hype.
This decrease was observed in all types of market segments, with a 36% reduction in the number of full-time employees from 2018 to 2019.
Compared with data from 2018, the study showed that cryptocurrency exchange transactions are even greater carried out on exchanges than in transactions between people or without the intermediation of third parties (P2P).
An important fact was that stablecoins (stable cryptocurrencies) are becoming more and more available. The share of service providers that support Tether has grown from 4% to 32% in two years.
Adding the rest of the stablecoins outside of Tether, growth was 44% in exchange listings in two years.
It was also shown that there was an increase in the trading volume of stablecoins.
The study showed that on average 39% of proof-of-work mining is run by renewable energy, mainly hydroelectric energy.
Understanding the energy source of mining is important because electricity costs are responsible for the majority of hashers' operating expenses.
Part of the mining companies reported that they have programs for the use of renewable energy and / or that they are always looking for cheaper sources of energy.
Service providers with operational headquarters in North America and Europe indicated that corporate and institutional customers represented approximately 30% of their customers, while in Asia-Pacific (APAC) it was 16%, followed by Latin America with only 10% .
Finally, an important fact was that companies that use cryptocurrencies are no longer using platforms that do not use or apply KYC / AML verification.
One of the reasons was the regulatory measures most present in several countries, and the safety standards implemented by companies.
Another point is that the companies themselves, for reasons of mutual security, have implemented these systems more rigorously even to avoid cyber crimes.
However, the study showed that many exchanges apply greater control to only part of their customers, as they allow them to use the services in a restricted way, even having implemented low levels of security, such as selfie presentation, use of verification factor 2FA account, among others.
