The number of non-zero Bitcoin addresses - exceeded 50 million
Source: OKLink
The number of Bitcoin non-zero addresses refers to the total number of addresses with balance > 0. The long-term trend is upward. The latest number currently exceeds 53 million. Blockchain has no borders. This is global data.
Even Bitcoin held in an exchange account has a corresponding on-chain address, but the exchange address is hosted by the exchange and does not belong to a non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet, and there will be some complex agency operations and other mechanisms, but this They are still addresses that exist on the chain, and these addresses will also be calculated in the on-chain data.
53 million Bitcoin non-zero addresses does not mean that there are 53 million people holding Bitcoin, because one person can have multiple addresses. For example, because the author tried inscriptions before, plus fixed investment in the exchange, etc., one person has 4-5 Bitcoin non-zero addresses, 53 million non-zero addresses, the real number of people has to be discounted a lot, maybe between 10-30 million.
Even if there are 53 million people, is this high or low? To give a reference value, the number of households holding stocks in the United States alone greatly exceeds this number. According to surveys , 58% of households in the United States hold stocks in 2022, and the number of households in the United States exceeded 130 million that year.
It seems to be still very low, with a difference of nearly 3 times. Bitcoin is still far away from global adoption and becoming the world's standard asset. But after all, the Bitcoin blockchain is a relatively young blockchain and does not have many functions. Applications are mostly concentrated on public chains of other platforms, and there are currently tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies. Although Bitcoin is the most well-known, many players in the crypto hardly hold Bitcoin, but invest in other newer and more widely used cryptocurrencies.
Although Bitcoin is the most famous and valuable, Bitcoin data cannot be used to evaluate the usage of cryptocurrency. Next, let’s try to estimate the number of global users of cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency global population estimates
Here are two ways to estimate the global population of cryptocurrency users:
Method 1 - The total number of registered accounts on the leading exchange Binance <br>Binance is the most well-known exchange in the crypto. The market share of spot market trading volume has exceeded 50% for a long time, and the latest data is also above 40%; According to the latest Chinese crypto market survey , more than 90% of crypto users frequently use Binance. In other words, it can be reasonably inferred that most cryptocurrency players will at least register a Binance account.
Method 2 - The total number of addresses on the top ecological public chains <br>After all, exchanges are not on-chain operations. If you want to estimate the "blockchain" user population more accurately, using on-chain data will be more useful. Sex, calculated using the number of addresses of the top ecological public chains.
Total number of registered accounts on leading exchange Binance
As soon as you go to the Binance homepage, you will see the current number of registered accounts. As of this writing, it is 220 million.
But there are still two points to consider:
Although Binance is the most well-known and leading exchange, not every player in the crypto has registered, and some countries prohibit citizens from using Binance (such as the United States). The actual proportion may be between 30% and 60%. You can follow this Total number of pushbacks.
Reference: Coinbase is currently the world's only listed cryptocurrency exchange. According to reports, the total number of registered users has exceeded 100 million as of 2023. Coinbase's main market is in the United States, because listed companies must disclose financial reports regularly.
Although exchange registration requires KYC real-name authentication, one person cannot register multiple accounts, but it is possible to register for family members in order to get new account rewards (but the family members are not actually using it). Considering this part, a slight discount is needed, but because There is a little trouble, the proportion of this part should not be too high.
Based on the total number of registered accounts on Binance, it is estimated that the total cryptocurrency population may be between 350 million and 700 million.
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Number of addresses of major ecological public chains
Mainly using the blockchain browser platform OKLink , combined with other on-chain data tools.
The top public chain ecosystems other than Bitcoin include: EVM, TRON, Solana, Polkadot, and Cosmos. The addresses of the EVM ecosystem are all the same. The data of Ethereum shall be used directly:
Ethereum (represented by EVM): The total number of addresses is 346 million, and the number of monthly active addresses is approximately 7 million.
TRON: The total number of addresses is 288 million, and the number of monthly active addresses is about 14 million.
Solana: There is no total number of addresses, only the number of active addresses. The number of monthly active addresses is about 26 million.
Polkadot: The total number of addresses is about 8 million, and the number of monthly active addresses is about 2x million sources
Cosmos: The total number of addresses is about 2.7 million, and the number of monthly active addresses is about 2x million sources
There are two points to consider here:
The total number of addresses in different ecosystems is highly overlapping <br>People who enter the crypto can easily have addresses in multiple ecosystems at the same time. For example, registering an exchange, the exchange will provide stored value addresses for many chains, or even if you are a player on the chain , it is also very common to create wallets in different ecosystems due to airdrops or other reasons. It is very easy for a person to have addresses in multiple ecosystems at the same time.
Because of the high degree of overlap, the total number of addresses cannot be added up, and the number of active addresses will be more informative. Except for a very small number of experienced players, it is difficult for most people to be active in multiple ecosystems at the same time.
One person will have many addresses <br>Even if they are in the same ecosystem, they may use different wallet tools, or for safer airdrop interactions, creating new addresses is very fast and cost-free. It is very possible for one person to create many addresses. Addresses are used to interact with different protocols. There is a huge discount when using the number of addresses to estimate the real number of people.
The total number of monthly active addresses in several major ecosystems: about 47.5 million. This is the number of monthly active addresses. It will be recorded only if there is an operation within 30 days. If it is the kind of thing that is left alone after staking and only checked once after half a year. It will not be counted here, the actual number of addresses with crypto assets will be much higher than this number.
However, the real number of people behind the estimate of the number of addresses must be divided by at least 2-5 or even more. Overall, it is estimated that the number of users on the cryptocurrency chain may be between 30 million and 150 million.
Estimates of two data:
The total cryptocurrency population is between 350 million and 700 million
Number of people using the chain (operating on the chain) - 30 million - 150 million
Triple A releases “The State of Global Cryptocurrency Ownership in 2024”
“Today, 562 million people around the world own some or various forms of digital currency, up from 420 million in 2023. In other words, 6.8% of the world’s population owns and uses digital currency.”
The report states that Asia is leading this wave, with the number of people owning cryptocurrencies increasing from 268.2 million to 326.8 million, an increase of 21.8%. North America followed, rising from 52.1 million to 72.2 million, an increase of 38.6%.
Top ten countries by popularity:
United Arab Emirates
Singapore
Türkiye
Argentina
Thailand
Brazil
Vietnam
USA
Saudi Arabia
Malaysia
In addition to the United States, it is concentrated in Southeast Asia, West Asia, and South America. South Korea, which is generally known to be crazy about currency speculation, only ranks 13th.
real world reference value
Judging from these data and surveys, the current popularity of cryptocurrency is about hundreds of millions of people, and there are tens to hundreds of millions of people who can operate on the chain. How many or few are these people?
Compare this to a few real-world numbers:
Banked population - approximately 6-7 billion
According to a report released by the World Bank in 2022, about 1.4 billion people around the world did not have bank accounts at that time. Compared with the current population, the number of people who said they had bank accounts was about 6-7 billion.
Number of mobile phone and internet users
According to the " 2023 Mobile Network Connection Report " released by the GSMA, 4.6 billion people around the world use mobile networks, and 4.3 billion people own smartphones.
Number of people opening stock accounts
There are currently no relevant statistics on the number of accounts opened in the global stock market. Let’s first refer to several nearby market data:
By the end of 2023, Taiwan will have a cumulative number of 12.5 million account openings and more than 4 million effective trading accounts. Source
The number of accounts opened in South Korea exceeded 40 million in 2021, and almost all adults have opened an account. Source
The number of individual shareholders in Japan will exceed 74 million in 2023, hitting a new high, source
The number of investment accounts in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen markets exceeded 200 million at the end of the period, source
Summary – we are still early, but mass adoption won’t happen by itself
Judging from the data, the current total cryptocurrency population is about several hundred million people, and there are even fewer active on-chain players, only tens of millions. If we think that blockchain will enter the world and become the next generation network, or it will be more advanced Financial applications are still far away from the current Internet and bank usage rates, at least ten to dozens of times further away.
And just these tens to hundreds of millions of users have allowed cryptocurrency to grow into a huge industry with a market value of US$2 trillion.
But after all, blockchain is still something that has a cognitive threshold. The public will not naturally start to use it, and it will not naturally become popular. If we want to realize that kind of future, there are still many areas that need to be improved, and there are still many things to do.
Perhaps the most important part is chain abstraction. After all, blockchain is still too difficult to use for the public. The goal of chain abstraction is to simplify everything so that all web 3 things can be used like web 2. Just as simple and intuitive, maybe this is the key track in the next stage, and some key projects in the future will appear on this track.
What is "chain abstraction" in vernacular? Technical principles｜Project introduction
