The research company Diar has presented an analytical report on the results achieved in the cryptocurrency market in 2018. The report lists the achievements and declines that occurred in the crypto market in 2018. Thus, compared to January 2018, in December the income of bitcoin miners decreased by 83%. In 2018, Bitcoin miners earned an income of $5.8 billion from their activity. According to the results of January last year, as stated in the analytical report of the research company Diar, revenue from BTC mining amounted to $1.2 billion, but by December this figure had fallen to $210 million.

At the beginning of last year, the share of Bitmain's pools in Bitcoin's hashrate, including ViaBTC and BTC.com which it controls, was 53%. At the beginning of 2019, this figure had decreased to 39%. This is probably good for decentralization and for reducing the risk of a potential "51% attack" on bitcoin.

The hashrate of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency network peaked at the start of the second half of 2018, after which a significant decline followed, lasting until the end of last year. Some growth in hashrate began in the second ten days of January after bitcoin bounced off its yearly low near the $3200 mark. Diar suggests that after this some miners switched on part of their temporarily idle equipment.

On the other hand, the researchers note, Bitcoin mining is still inaccessible to small miners, since for most of them the break-even point is near the $5000 per bitcoin mark.


The report also states that 2018 was marked for exchanges by a "record volume of transactions". At most major trading platforms, trading volumes exceeded 2017 figures. At the same time, Diar forecasts that in 2019 activity indicators on the cryptocurrency spot market will turn out to be lower than in 2017, despite the possible expansion of exchange listings with new assets.

Trading volume on Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US, grew by 21% last year compared to 2017. The growth in trading volumes on Kraken and Bitfinex over this period was 192% and 50% respectively.

In addition to the growth in trading volumes, Coinbase also recorded an increase in the number of crypto asset trades. The growth over the year was 14.1% (82.7 million trades in 2017; 94.4 million trading operations in 2018).


As for stablecoins, this segment is seeing rapid growth of coins that appeared in 2018. Against the background of this process, the share of Tether USD (USDT), which once held a monopoly position, fell below 70% for the first time. Among the "new stablecoins", the most popular is USDC from the startup Circle. Its share of the stablecoin market is now 13%.