CoinDesk Releases Q1 2018 State of Blockchain Report

To shed light on a tumultuous Q1, CoinDesk's latest State of Blockchain report provides a 90-plus slide analysis of some of the most significant data points.

The numbers may look grim, but that didn't show up in overall sentiment: 79 percent of the respondents to our CoinDesk Sentiment Survey thought this bear market would be short-lived.

Eighty-six percent said this was a correction after the rampant over-speculation of the prior quarter while 62 percent said that regulation was a depressing factor.

Over Q1 we saw the slope of hash rate - the amount of processing power devoted to securing the bitcoin network - diverge from market cap, instead of each moving in the same direction, as in Q4 2017.

Bitcoin's hash rate held strong against the competition; bitcoin cash, the cryptocurrency with the second-strongest hash rate, averaged only 12 percent of bitcoin's hash rate over the quarter.

Thirty-one percent of survey respondents said they paid taxes on gains; however, the number of those obligated to pay taxes might be higher than those that report taxable gains.

Of U.S.-based respondents, 82 percent indicated that it wasn't easy to understand their tax liability while 62 percent of non-U.S. based respondents said the same.

ICO activity remained brisk, with $6.3 billion raised in Q1. Monthly breakdowns of ICO raises show each individual month of Q1 was higher than the record amount set in December.

While 21 percent suggest lightning will centralize bitcoin more, the other 79 percent think there will be no change or less centralization because of it.

CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.