How many people are actually involved in cryptocurrency?
This is a difficult question to answer. Reports at the start of the year pegged the number on a global basis are around 100 million people. On a planet with more than 7.5 billion, this is an insignificant amount.
It is presumed that number has grown somewhat over the past 4 months. What is the rate of growth? That is anyone's guess. We do know, however, that things are expanding greatly.
The interest in cryptocurrency in the United States is starting to reach a significant portion of the country. Those involved in cryptocurrency is at an all time high.
A survey was done by the Winklevoss Twins Gemini group. This was conducted to try and get a handle on what is taking place.
The results found that roughly 14% of the people owned cryptocurrency. With an estimated adult population of around 260 million, this is more than 36 million individuals owning cryptocurrency.
This would lead us to believe that the number of crypto users is far higher than the 100 million estimated at the beginning of the year.
Another point that the survey makes is how we are seeing men outpacing women in% this. The breakdown is 74% to 26%. We also see this is an area where there is a lot of interest.
63% of the respondents classified themselves as “crypto curious,” while 23 went into the “disinterested” graph. Interestingly, more than half of the so-called curious were actually women.
“While just 26% of current crypto holders are women, we see the potential for this to change significantly. Women account for more than half (53%) of those interested in getting into crypto soon, representing a major potential shift.”
These numbers are far from mass adoption. They show how there is a great deal of upside. However, the interest evidently is there which bodes well for future projects.
It is possible that number grows to near 20% by the end of the year, putting the total at 50 million people.
Bitcoin Wallets
Many feel the best way to look at the adoption rate of crypto is to focus upon the wallets. Fortunately, we can uncover what the two major currencies look like along with a growth area.
According to Statista, the number of Bitcoin wallets has risen significantly. This is not a great surprise considering all the attention that the leading cryptocurrency got from institutions. This also likely brought in a number of wealthy individuals also.
The chart is a little misleading since the timeline of the last 3 iterations is much shorter than before. It went from every quarter to 4 days.
Nevertheless, it say that in January there were 66 million Bitcoin wallets and now there are over 71 million.
Ethereum Wallets
The second leading cryptocurrency always got a lot of attention for its number of wallets. This was long considered a barometer of what was taking place since the applications on Ethereum outnumber those elsewhere in the industry.
Recent increases in the cost of transactions might be changing that view. However, this is still a crucial chain to the ongoing expansion of the industry. More on this in the next section.
While the growth in Bitcoin wallets is impressive, Ethereum's growth is even greater. The network is adding more wallets at a faster pace. There are also double the number of wallets as compared to Bitcoin.
Using the numbers from Etherscan, we see that the Ethereum wallets are approaching 150 million. This is up from the 130 million to start the year. In the near 4 months, there were almost 18 million wallets added.
Binance Smart Chain Wallets
Due to the cost of transactions on Ethereum, a newcomer is gaining a lot of momentum.
BSC really started to get attention in February for its DeFi applications. The yield farming craze was brought to this chain which absolutely exploded. This caused a major influx of money to the chain, putting the TVL at over $30 billion.
This is seen being spread out over an incredible number of wallets. In a short period of time, we see that is starting to near Bitcoin with this metric.
BSCSCAN is putting this total near 67 million.
NFT Market Exploding
Over the course of the first part of the year, the NFT market has exploded. This is also not a surprise to those in the cryptocurrency industry. It is the rage right now and the statistics are backing it up.
We see the value of the NFT market absolute skyrocketing. This is a move that is starting to bring in celebrities as well as long time crypto billionaires such as Mark Cuban.
According to Bitdealer, the market cap for NFT projects went up 1,785%. It is likely that is just kept heading higher throughout the month of April.
Getting a handle on the exact number of users is difficult. Since things are spread over a number of chains and there is a degree of anonymity to all this, we are unsure how many people these wallets translate into. We know people own multiple wallets, across many chains. So anything that is concluded is truly guesswork.
Nevertheless, the trend is clear. While we cannot get exact numbers, it is fairly obvious there are more people involved in cryptocurrency and digital assets than there were at the beginning of the year.
Is this a result of the bull market? Perhaps. Skyrocketing prices tend to attract a lot of newer people.
However, it is important to note there are lasting changes taking place. DeFi, as an example, is starting to offer some legitimate financial services. This is only going to expand as more development and innovation takes place.
At the same time, the world of NFTs is just beginning to open up. This is going to lead to a great deal of experimentation, some of which will have an ongoing impact.
The bottom like of all this is that cryptocurrency adoption is growing at a rapid pace. Over the next couple years, the numbers will likely be a much larger. It will not be surprising if we see the total number of wallets for these three chains alone pushing the 1 billion mark.
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