Right now, there are active digital currency markets running 24/7 in at least 45 national currencies.1 That is, there are digital currency markets in one quarter of the 180 national currencies recognized as legal tender by the United Nations. 2

Seven years into the onrush of Nakamoto's protocol, we think it makes sense to ask: Why does this matter? Why is closing the gap on the remaining three quarters important? What opportunities reside there?

Why It Matters

It matters in the first case because the geographic distribution of these markets is misaligned with the distribution of bitcoin market potential. At any given point in time, it is difficult to establish a bead on the aggregate global exchange count. Small exchanges crop up with little media presence and volunteer-run indexes have difficulty staying current.

The pattern, nevertheless, is clear enough: Europe and North America are each serviced by more than 30 exchanges, and East Asia by roughly 20, concentrated in China. Conversely, South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America have nothing approaching this density. Further, exchange volumes today correlate with exchange count, with the staggering majority of digital-fiat conversion hosted in the Chinese yuan, U.S. dollar, and euro. The overwhelming majority of bitcoin-fiat trades is against the yuan, virtually all of it at zero-fee exchanges, creating masses of volume whose validity is difficult to pinpoint.3 Beyond this, American dollars and euros come second and third, respectively. Other currencies in aggregate scarcely register.

And yet, digital currency's greatest mainstream potential and most compelling use cases tend to reside outside of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia.