900% increase in Bitcoin merchants

Bitcoin-accepted-here-printableBitPay has announced the approval of its 10,000th merchant while at this time last year the company had just reached 1,000 merchants. That’s an increase of 900% for the leading payment processor.

While BitPay is only one option available to merchants it is the largest Bitcoin payment processor and these numbers give a glimpse into the Bitcoin economy.

BitPay’s merchants are still largely ecommerce, 90%+, but they have experienced increased growth in non-US merchants. Earlier this year 40% of BitPays merchants were located outside the US, however these latest numbers show a 10% increase to 50% of customers based outside North America.

In line with the growth in merchants, the volume of Bitcoin sales through the business has also had a dramatic increase. “The month of August was another record month for BitPay, processing over 10,000 merchant transactions worth over $6.4 million.  Year-to-date in 2013, over $34 million worth of bitcoins have been spent on goods and services through merchants using BitPay’s platform.”

The Bitcoin economy may be small, but it’s growing rapidly!