Topic: CryptoCurrency User Base (Read 1609 times)

As I posted above, it basically comes down to two things. Number of unique users, meaning one individual, as many people have multiple accounts on forums, at different exchanges, possibly even some have multiple accounts on single exchanges. This would be probably be very hard to get an accurate number, thus all we can do is estimate.

The second important thing is how much BTC, or BTC equivalent (in the case of users holding alternative cryptocurrencies), a individual controls. I use the term controls as they may have amounts spread out amongst different wallets, exchanges, or even holding different types of alts.

I would guess there are a lot of people who may have a wallet somewhere and got some dust from a faucet, giveaways, or some other method and would not necessarily be considered a user. If we count all those, I could possibly see 1 or 2 million. But if we count only people who have 0.1 BTC or more, I again think it would be closer to the 250,000, maybe 500,000 number.

I'm sure there are a lot of people with accounts at various exchanges but they don't actually have bitcoin
Yeah, we'd need the exchanges to give us that info, which is unlikely to say the least.

It's very hard to say, but I think probably 2-3  million users.
CryptoCurrency is still unknown to the big part of people we have to work to raise this number

Sorry, but there is no way there are 10-15 million bitcoin users around the world. There are only ~15 million bitcoins that have been mined, with less than that in circulation due to lost coins, burned coins, satoshis abandoned million, etc.

If each person held one BTC the price would be more than the current $280 each and the interest in BTC would be skyrocketing. Considering the fact that we know of several people who control 1,000's of BTC, if not millions, we could dilute the needed amount to be considered a Bitcoin user to say possessing .25 BTC. I think even using this lowered criteria it would be a stretch to say there are 10 million users. I think the 250,000 figure is pretty accurate if we stick with people who either hold or at least use .25 BTC or more routinely.

I suppose if one were to count total addresses, etc. there would be maybe a million people or so, but is it fair to count someone as an "user" who maybe created an online wallet, had some dust deposited and never touched it again? You can argue over the exact amount needed to be counted, even drop to say .1 BTC or roughly $28, but again I can not see a significant increase.

As far as the 500,000 BCT Forum users, as pointed out by others this I am sure can be deflated to probably 200,000 or less unique people. The one pumper dude was recently found to have over 100 accounts by himself, so it is not unheard of to have multiple accounts. With signature campaigns, shills, countless other reasons, I am sure having multiple BCT accounts is more common than not. Say the average was maybe 3 accounts per user, this would put BCT user-base at ~175,000 users. The Reddit accounts, mentioned elsewhere, would mostly contain duplicate BCT users, so the additional unique users would be almost negligible, so even giving lots of benefit of the doubt, I could see the 250,000 users figure as pretty spot on.

It is said that are around 250k bitcoin users that own over 1 BTC in their wallets worldwide. Maybe this is outdated or just a rumour but I think that should be at least 10-15 million bitcoin users around the world.

No numbers on the actual user base, but there was a recent post here: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/study-computer-programmers-criminals-top-bitcoin-users/

Makes one think.

Oh thats handy to know, i clearly missed that.

This could turn into a an intresting social experiment

Nobody can tell exactly, but as the bigger service providers such as Blockchain, Coinbase, Bitstamp, BTC-E each celebrated their millionth user in the last days and weeks (one person could have many addresses though), I would guess we are somewhere in the low one figure millions.

Well not everybody own a bitcointalk account! 2 of mine friends, that I personally got into Bitcoin own some coins but they don't have an account here on bitcointalk.

They read about it a little bit, they bought some coins and they don't have time for forums etc.. They have their families, jobs, etc..

So to judge on the number of users by the number of bitcointalk accounts is impossible.

Well I counted inactive accounts because it doesn't matter that some people no longer use Bitcointalk, that they've used BTC at one time is enough for me to count them as users. The buying and selling of accounts is not that common, I doubt there's more than a few thousands accounts for sale (if even that). Also selling accounts just means that the account has a new owner, I'd imagine newcomers to be the ones most likely to buy accounts so they can join campaigns. I don't think there are a lot of veterans buying up tons of accounts for themselves ( there probably are some but I doubt it would be more than 100). Bitcointalk is certainly one of the most popular crypto forum but there are plenty more people out there that use BTC/crypto. I myself started out on Reddit and was using crypto for quite a few months before I joined the forum here. Reddit has a pretty huge crypto crowd too and a lot of the people there don't have accounts here.

let say bitcointalk have over 520,000 account.. but you cannot say how many is inactive this forum..and how many have multiple account..
in this forum there are user who buy account.. and also there are user who sell account.. do you think if they sell there account they will not make a new one..and some member here make new account to try to scam.. there are so many new member daily in lending section try to scam.. and also there are many member who make a lot of account just for profit so we cant just base it in account..in that thousand account we dont know how may is inactive..bitcointalk is almost the largest bitcoin forum so we can only say that almost all the bitcoin member is here.. only those who dont.. maybe only those who just starting to use bitcoin and until now dont discover bitcointalk..

Something that just occurred to me, not that it makes much difference, but

First rule of business is knowing your market correct?

How can anyone know there market when no one actually knows the size or disposition of the market............

Perhaps this is the primary reason we see "scam this" and "scam that" company's who then go bust, if the market really is less than a million people, its easy to see why it happens etc, don't really matter what market sector you work in, a million people is a small number to run a sustainable business from in the context of bitcoin and cryptos that are global

It should definitely be more than 250k. There are just over 520,000 accounts on Bitcointalk atm and I'd imagine most people on here have used or traded BTC at some point. There are probably a lot of people with more than 1 account but the number of unique accounts should still be more than 250k. And that's just Bitcointalk, there's bound to be a lot more people out there that uses BTC.

Well this gives you just a hint of crypto potential, doesn't it?
We have just scratched a surface of the crypto users!

I also think that 250,000 is a low number. I would say rather 500,000-1 million users but even tbis is nothing when you compare it to 7 billion people.

Another valid point how many accounts are really unique on a given service, i myself have a couple of accounts on each exchange, one for myself and one for other things, in the context of my question that would mean at say Cryptsy i would count twice.

it hard to know the exact cryptocurency user
we can not calculate the user in wallet because eveybody use more 3 wallet..
also not in wallet address because everybody know you can have more 100 address..
and also not in forum because for multi account and inactive account..
but i guess more than a million know about bitcoin including who just try..
and also those who  have knowledge but dont have time to use it or not interested..
but for me in my calculation i think not more than 100k is interested and using it right now..
because until now i can say that i dont encounter more than  100k user from the start im using bitcoin..
and some of the user i encounter is now inactive or some dont have interest anymore because price get lower..

Im just trying to better understand my given audience, whilst you raise a fair point about the "registered" part.

Ive been helping out on a side project and weve kinda been trying to nail it down as best we can, but it seems to be a moving goal, theres many valid arguments and cases, and various online reports of this and that, so taking into account what i have seen,

a million users seems to be "give or take" the consensus in terms of replys here and the articles online.

I had rather hoped it would be considerably higher than this to be fair.


Once again i thank you all for your input

That is the common misconception about crytousers. I don't think you need to be 'registered' anywhere to be a bitcoin or altcoins user.
That is the problem with estimate number of bitcoin users, there is no one main service which is required to use bitcoin, you just need a wallet.

I had the impression there are a couple million Coinbase accounts in existence. Even allowing for the potential for many bitcoiners to have multiple accounts, that's just one company. Of course, you have to break down who is a passionate bitcoin user, people who've had a minor reason to use it but are not regular users, and those who merely dabbled a bit out of curiousity, or former users who've been burned.

Still, I'm guessing the user base of the first two populations is over a million now, maybe a bit more. It would be very interesting to get a handle on numbers for all four of the groups per the breakdown I give above.

the number of people who KNOWS about it could number hundreds of millions, even.

The number of people who have either bought, received from friends or faucets or whatever may number in the high 7 digits or even low 8 digits.

The number of people who still believe in bitcoin and own at least 1 satoshi probably number in the very low 7 digits.


But the number of people who actually use it either for trade or buying things or whatever, is probably quite low. Maybe 100-250k

source: Numbers pulled out of my ass. But I think it's probably as good as any.