Best metric for evaluating Bitcoin adoption rate over time - page 2.

deisik

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Quote from: Red Fish on November 22, 2016, 11:23:16 AM

To objectively estimate the number of users actually using Bitcoin, anyone can see from Blockchain link here https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/ how many wallets are there now. Blockchain is largest Web wallet, so you can see actual number of Bitcon users - around 8 millions now.

This number is as irrelevant as misleading since a user can create an arbitrary number of wallets. Even if each wallet matched one user exactly, this figure still would not be of great help since, first, we can't see how it changed over time, and, second, there might be a lot of abandoned wallets of users who are no longer interested in Bitcoin (negative adoption, or disadoption of sorts). As you can see, the number of Bitcoin users doesn't necessarily tell us the real adoption rate, which is a bit counterintuitive, of course...

That's why I started this thread addressing that point exactly

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Quote from: Red Fish on November 22, 2016, 11:23:16 AM

To objectively estimate the number of users actually using Bitcoin, anyone can see from Blockchain link here https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/ how many wallets are there now. Blockchain is largest Web wallet, so you can see actual number of Bitcon users - around 8 millions now.

I don't think the number of wallets on blockchain.info reflect the real number of users, some users create more than one wallet for security reasons, maybe have a lot of empty wallets and abandoned ones.

Number of transactions can be a smart way to see the growing.

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Quote from: Red Fish on November 22, 2016, 11:23:16 AM

To objectively estimate the number of users actually using Bitcoin, anyone can see from Blockchain link here https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/ how many wallets are there now. Blockchain is largest Web wallet, so you can see actual number of Bitcon users - around 8 millions now.

I think 8 millions is only an estimate since people can have am utiple wallets. Same with transactions. I think theres no specific way to evaluate bitcoin adoption rate but we can the the bitcoin volume being traded.

deisik

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Quote from: DimensionZ on November 22, 2016, 10:12:05 AM

I am not sure if this is such a good idea to be honest. Using the amount of Bitcoin transactions processed daily to gauge the adoption rate might be misleading because it's very easy to spam the Blockchain with fake TX. How can we distinguish between the real TX and the bot spammed fake TX? Increasing the amount of daily TX doesn't always translate to more unique users

Fake transactions usually don't have fees set, right? If so, they can be easily found and discarded. On the other hand, if they have fees, then are they really fake?

Quote from: panju1 on November 22, 2016, 10:47:36 AM

Wouldn't that plateau as we reach the blocksize limit? Bitcoin adoption could be increasing, with more transactions moving off-chain.
But we wouldn't able to figure that out, by justing looking at the number of transactions being processed.

There are still many half empty (or half full) blocks on the blockchain, or blocks with only the block generating transaction (don't know how it is properly called). When we get to the point at which there would be no more room for transactions in all blocks at the current block size during, say, a day, the block should be already expanded to accommodate all these new transactions...

It would be interesting to know the average percentage at which blocks are filled right now

Red Fish

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To objectively estimate the number of users actually using Bitcoin, anyone can see from Blockchain link here https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/ how many wallets are there now. Blockchain is largest Web wallet, so you can see actual number of Bitcon users - around 8 millions now.

Kprawn

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The most accurate measure of the adoption rate, would be when regulated exchanges release their data for specific periods to see if there was

a increase or a decrease during these periods. They have to adhere to KYC/AML regulations and this links identities to accounts, not like these

anonymous wallet providers {Blockchain.info} where one user might have multiple accounts/wallets and this will never give you a accurate

idea what the adoption rate is. The problem is, that these regulated exchanges are not sharing their data.

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Quote from: Pursuer on November 22, 2016, 10:00:39 AM

well I think if you are going to look at the bigger picture like the chart that you have included in your comment, then it is a good thing for evaluating bitcoin adoption over a long term meaning over this 6-8 years of bitcoin existing. and that can only tell us that it has increased and nothing else, meaning you can not come up with a number for example saying X million people are using bitcoin today.

I thought about that and actually said almost everything on this issue in the opening post. The main problem with this metric (i.e. number of people using Bitcoin) is that it is impossible to assess this number accurately as well as define exactly whom we should consider as "using Bitcoin today". Should Satoshi with his million of bitcoins sitting idly in his wallets be counted toward people using bitcoins?

On the other hand, the number of Bitcoin transactions processed daily is a concrete figure which can be further analyzed

panju1

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Wouldn't that plateau as we reach the blocksize limit? Bitcoin adoption could be increasing, with more transactions moving off-chain.
But we wouldn't able to figure that out, by justing looking at the number of transactions being processed.

deisik

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Quote from: Red-Apple on November 22, 2016, 08:48:15 AM

i have found out that you can never find a good factor to look at and measure for evaluating bitcoin's adoption. and anything that you come up with will have lots of flaws, mainly because how bitcoin works: no centralized place to give us stats and it has a certain anonymity to it that you can not find which address belongs to whom even if you go through blockchain and separate them all out

I agree that there cannot possibly be a perfect measure for evaluating the Bitcoin adoption. Having said that, I still think that we could you use some data and statistical analysis tools to get al least an approximation of that. As an aside, we still lack a proper definition what Bitcoin adoption actually means...

And in what units it should be measured

Quote from: Red-Apple on November 22, 2016, 08:48:15 AM

as for number of tranastions i think that is one of the many closest thing we have got and when looking at it in the long term it shows good signs. but the flaw in it is that usually when trading is hot, there is a lot of transactions happening, and also blockchain in the past years have been spammed a lot with spam attacks and also "on chain casinos" which are not real usage, they send and receive each bet!

We could use a moving average to flatten out such and similar spikes

DimensionZ

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I am not sure if this is such a good idea to be honest. Using the amount of Bitcoin transactions processed daily to gauge the adoption rate might be misleading because it's very easy to spam the Blockchain with fake TX. How can we distinguish between the real TX and the bot spammed fake TX? Increasing the amount of daily TX doesn't always translate to more unique users.

Pursuer

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well I think if you are going to look at the bigger picture like the chart that you have included in your comment, then it is a good thing for evaluating bitcoin adoption over a long term meaning over this 6-8 years of bitcoin existing. and that can only tell us that it has increased and nothing else, meaning you can not come up with a number for example saying X million people are using bitcoin today.

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Quote from: deisik on November 22, 2016, 06:37:42 AM

it is not possible to objectively and accurately estimate the number of users actually using Bitcoin, and, second, users that had used Bitcoin in the past or just keep their funds "under the mattress" are not very relevant for the said purpose since their coins can be considered as left for dead.

i agree with the OP said and i think the metric is only for people which want to know how much the number of people that really using bitcoin until now and don't even think that in out there the adoption is not work because we can see on every market, there is always new people which is really new in bitcoin industry and they want to know more and they decide to play trading.

the adoption is really work but its not gonna explode in short term but it will be growth from time to time. there is always need some other time to see that bitcoin is really mass adoption in every country.

Red-Apple

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i have found out that you can never find a good factor to look at and measure for evaluating bitcoin's adoption. and anything that you come up with will have lots of flaws, mainly because how bitcoin works: no centralized place to give us stats and it has a certain anonymity to it that you can not find which address belongs to whom even if you go through blockchain and separate them all out.

as for number of tranastions i think that is one of the many closest thing we have got and when looking at it in the long term it shows good signs. but the flaw in it is that usually when trading is hot, there is a lot of transactions happening, and also blockchain in the past years have been spammed a lot with spam attacks and also "on chain casinos" which are not real usage, they send and receive each bet!

deisik

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Many folks would claim that the best metric for evaluating Bitcoin adoption by general public would be a number of users using Bitcoin. I beg to differ for the reason that, first, it is not possible to objectively and accurately estimate the number of users actually using Bitcoin, and, second, users that had used Bitcoin in the past or just keep their funds "under the mattress" are not very relevant for the said purpose since their coins can be considered as left for dead, so to speak, until and unless they start circulating again (though the case of hoarders is more intricate, of course). I think that the stats of Bitcoin transactions processed daily and their change over time is a by far more informative and objective metric, which is also readily available for analysis...

So what is your opinion on using this metric for the purposes of evaluating Bitcoin adoption rate?

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