Very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

mtgox monthly volume 7-10x larger than SR's,  contrary to previous speculations that mostly SR marketplace fuels Bitcoin economy

You're comparing two very different things. Stock exchange volume world wide is many times global GDP...

What is your point?

The FOREX market has a total daily turnover rate of $4 trillion.  The gross world product is about $80 trillion.  SR is selling manufactured goods, they take capital and labor and create goods that are more valuable than the parts separate.  MtGox is a zero-sum game for speculators and just a place to exchange currency for those that want to buy or sell something using the Bitcoin currency.

Daily crawls? Damn. I didn't think Tor was fast enough that they could access every SR page in only 24 hours.

No way does every SR trade hit Gox twice. Lots of miners are going to just buy directly, lots of sellers are going to save in BTC, some will spend revenue back at SR as mentioned. Then you've got the fact that other exchanges make up about 20% of formal volume and the fact the SR users are going to tend more heavily away from Gox and will sell OTC if possible. I'd be very surprised if 1/2 of SR volume ended up on Gox, def not 2x.

It struck me that monthly profits are estimated at $140k.  Let's say with stealth deals $200k. The amount of work behind SR must be enormous: coding, constant security audits, server infrastructure (likely distributed), management of escrows, dispute resolution, customer support, whatnot.  There is no way a single person can run this business with this success.

So, it's a small group of people working very hard and risking a lot for a miserable renumeration.

===

As for the SR trade volume, it's estimated at $65k daily.  For comparison, Gox daily volume has generally been in the range of $200-$400k. Overall daily Bitcoin transaction volume, after eliminating the "change" transactions to self, has been equivalent to ~one million USD (blockchain.info).

What I'd really like to know is what fraction of overall BTC transaction volume is due to "mixing" services. If this is significant, it could be argued that SR represents a significant part of BTC economy; if mixing does not contribute a lot, then the conclusion is that there is much, much more to Bitcoin (1-2M daily) than SR (65k daily).

I agree bitcoin economy is not *strictly* driven by SR, but what other actual commerce occurs in bitcoins? The only thing of a similar magnitude (possibly bigger) is gambling. What else is there? People selling GPUs and doodads OTC. Speculation (some of which is captured by MtGox volume).

Looking at this study, I suspect it greatly underestimates SR-related business. The largest transactions between repeat buyers and sellers almost certainly occur off-exchange, not unlike they do with eBay.