In recent months we’ve not only seen the Bitcoin price increase, but the adoption rates too. During the market crashes instigated by the Covid-19 pandemic, many investors took their money from traditional stock markets and put it into Bitcoin as a hedge. Little did they know, Bitcoin then began an epic bull run that saw the cryptocurrency reach new all times highs. Investors aside, there are still many other people interested in the technology and store of value capabilities of BTC. Let’s explore how many people own Bitcoin.
There are a number of factors to look at, such as how many people actually know about it, how many wallets there are, and how much each wallet contains. Let’s take a thorough look.
How Many People Know About Bitcoin
Before we jump into how many people own Bitcoin, let’s take a look at how many people actually know about the cryptocurrency. It is estimated that in the United States 90% of Americans have heard of the cryptocurrency, while Japan clocks in at 88%. Another report concluded that 66% of Europeans are familiar with Bitcoin, the higher countries accounting for 78% of the population in Poland and 79% in Austria.
In China, roughly 40% of the population indicated that they know about Bitcoin. Based on all these stats (and acknowledging that all corners of the globe have not been factored in), it appears that 2 billion are aware of Bitcoin, roughly 25% of the world population. You would expect it to be more following the supercharged bull run we’ve just witnessed.
How Many Bitcoin Wallets Are There?
According to Chainanalysis there are 450 million Bitcoin wallets on the network. This sounds like an extraordinarily large amount of wallets, but not all are active or even holding Bitcoin. Only 172 million of these are considered “economically relevant” meaning that they hold a certain amount of BTC. Of these 172 million wallets, 86% (147 million) are associated with services such as gambling, exchanges, darknet and merchants. This leaves 25 million wallets considered to be private addresses, with only 20.5 million holding more that $1 worth of BTC.
However, there are a few discrepancies. For instance, one service wallet could attribute to hundreds of users on a platform. Or one person might have several addresses, i.e. a paper wallet, a desktop wallet and a mobile wallet that each have different functions in their life. Something else to consider is that people buying and storing BTC on a platform might never create their own personal wallet address. Baring these in mind there is no way of knowing how many active wallets there are at any given time.
How Many People Own Bitcoin?
We now know that approximately 2 billion people around the world have heard of Bitcoin, but an estimate of only 25 million have engaged in buying. Considering the wide use cases, not to mention its store of value capabilities, it’s anyone’s guess why more people haven’t looked into the cryptocurrency.
Down to business, let’s take a look at approximately how many people own Bitcoin. In the United States it is believed that 11% of the population has bought Bitcoin, which works out to be roughly 30 million. In Europe, roughly 4% of the population owns Bitcoin, adding another 37 million people to our growing pool. Considering just Europe and America, this already puts the number at 67 million Bitcoin owners. However, there are only 20.5 million Bitcoin addresses with over $1 worth of Bitcoin leading us to believe that 46.5 million users keep their BTC on a centralized exchange.
Taking a look at active traders around the world, Europe boasts 10.1 million, North America 15.3 million, Africa 1.6 million and Latin America 1.05 million. Japan counts 6.75 million, South Korea 5 million, the rest of Asia has 15.3 million while Australia counts 400,000 active Bitcoin traders. This totals to 55.1 million active traders, roughly 0.7% of the world population.
According to the Bitcoin network there are between 400,000 and 800,00 active wallets per day sending and receiving BTC. As wallets can send to two addresses at one, this places the number of unique users at approximately 300,000 – 500,000 using Bitcoin each day. Comparing this number to the world population, that attributes to 0.006% of the population is trading Bitcoin daily.
In conclusion, according to the research above there are approximately 20.5 million private wallet addresses with 55.1 million active Bitcoin traders and roughly 300,000 – 500,000 active users on the Bitcoin network daily.
Bitcoin Only Getting Bigger
While it is impossible to put a finger on the exact number of Bitcoin wallets there are, or people that own and actively use Bitcoin, these numbers should give a clear indication that there is substantial interest, and substantial room for growth. Further illustrating this point, Blockchain.com recorded from 2019 to 2020 a 41% increase in users. If you’re looking to get your hands on the best performing asset of the last decade, look no further than Oobit. At Oobit you can go from cash to crypto within minutes. Get started with as little as $20 and buy Bitcoin easily with a credit card, debit card, or bank account.
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