The global user base of cryptocurrencies increased by nearly 190 percent between 2018 and 2020, only to accelerate further in 2022. This is according to calculations from various sources, based on information from trading platforms and on-chain wallets. Increasing demographics might initially be attributed to a rise in the number of accounts and improvements in identification. In 2021, however, crypto adoption continued as companies like Tesla and Mastercard announced their interest in cryptocurrency. Consumers in Africa, Asia, and South America were most likely to be an owner of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, in 2022.

How many of these users have Bitcoin?

User figures for individual cryptocurrencies are unavailable. Bitcoin, for instance, was created not to be tracked by banks and governments. What comes closest is the trading volume of Bitcoin against domestic fiat currencies. The source assumed, however, that UK residents were the most likely to make Bitcoin transactions with British pounds. This assumption might not be accurate for popular fiat currencies worldwide. On top of that, coins such as Tether or Binance Coin - referred to as "stablecoins" - are often used to buy and sell Bitcoin. Those coins were not included in that particular statistic.

Wallet usage declined

Total crypto wallet downloads were significantly lower in 2022 than in 2021. The number of downloads of Coinbase, Blockchain.com, and MetaMask, among others, declined as the market hit a "crypto winter" over the year. The crypto market also suffered bad press when FTX - one of the largest crypto exchanges based on market share - collapsed in November 2022. Binance, on the other hand, regained some of the market share it had lost between September and October 2022, growing by 0.8 percentage points in November.

Introduction

Bitcoin Statistics: Bitcoin, often called "digital gold" or a "cryptocurrency," emerged in 2009, created by an enigmatic individual known as Satoshi Nakamoto.

It functions on a decentralized blockchain network, notable for its capped supply of 21 million coins, establishing it as a deflationary asset.

Bitcoin enables direct peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries, employing robust cryptographic security measures.

It has garnered recognition as a digital store of value and a medium of exchange, attracting investments and offering potential solutions for remittances and financial inclusivity.

Despite encountering obstacles like regulatory scrutiny and scalability concerns, Bitcoin's continual development is disrupting conventional financial systems, and its enduring influence on the worldwide economy remains a topic of profound interest and pioneering advancements.

How many cryptocurrencies are there? In short, there were over 9,000 as of 2023, although there were many more digital coins in the early months of 2022. Note, however, that a large portion of cryptocurrencies might not be that significant. There are other estimates of roughly 20,000 cryptocurrencies existing, but most of these are either inactive or discontinued. Due to how open the creation process of a cryptocurrency is, it is relatively easy to make one. Indeed, the top 20 cryptocurrencies make up nearly 90 percent of the total market. Why are there thousands of cryptocurrencies? Any private individual or company that knows how to write a program on a blockchain can technically create a cryptocurrency. That blockchain can be an existing one. Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain are popular blockchain platforms for such ends, including smart contracts within Decentralized Finance (DeFi). The ease of crypto creation allows some individuals to find solutions to real-world payment problems while others hope to make a quick profit. This explains why some crypto lack utility. Meme coins such as Dogecoin - named after a Japanese dog species - are an infamous example, with Dogecoin's creator coming out and stating the coin started as a joke. The many different types of cryptocurrency Meme coins are but one group of cryptocurrencies. Other types include altcoins, utility tokens, governance tokens, and stablecoins. Altcoins are often measured against Bitcoin, as this refers to all crypto that followed after Bitcoin - the first digital currency ever created. Utility tokens and governance tokens are somewhat connected to NFTs and the metaverse. A specific example is the MANA cryptocurrency, which allows real estate purchases in the Decentraland metaverse. Stablecoins refer to the likes of Tether, which are pegged to a real-world asset like the U.S. dollar. Such coins are meant to be less volatile than regular cryptocurrency.

Overview

Blockchain Statistics - Blockchain is a decentralized and distributed digital ledger that records transactions across numerous computers or nodes.

It is the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, but its potential applications go beyond digital money.

A blockchain, at its heart, is a chain of blocks, each of which contains a list of transactions. These blocks are connected via cryptographic hashes, resulting in an immutable and transparent record of all transactions.

It is estimated that the cumulative market cap of cryptocurrencies increased in early 2023 after the downfall in November 2022 due to FTX. That value declined in the summer of 2023, however, as international uncertainty grew over a potential recession. Bitcoin's market cap made up the majority of the overall market capitalization.

What is market cap?

Market capitalization is a financial measure typically used for publicly traded firms, computed by multiplying the share price by the number of outstanding shares. However, cryptocurrency analysts calculate it as the price of the virtual currencies times the number of coins in the market. This gives cryptocurrency investors an idea of the overall market size, and watching the evolution of the measure tells how much money is flowing in or out of each cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency as an investment

The price of Bitcoin has been erratic, and most other cryptocurrencies follow its larger price swings. This volatility attracts investors who hope to buy when the price is low and sell at its peak, turning a profit. However, this does little for price stability. As such, few firms accept payment in cryptocurrencies.

Crypto 24h trading volume declined as 2023 progressed, with figures being one-third lower than in 2022. The decline follows after Binance and Coins - two of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world - received lawsuits in the United States. Observations are also that the crypto market was quiet after April, citing a lack of a "strong overarching narrative". This is in contrast to 2021 and 2022 when cryptocurrency dominated the news and many people sought fortune in the digital currency.

Bitcoin developments

Bitcoin's trade volume slowed in the second quarter of 2023, after hitting a noticeable growth at the beginning of the year. The coin outperformed most of the market. Some attribute this to the announcement in June 203 that BlackRock filed for a Bitcoin ETF. This iShares Bitcoin Trust was to use Coinbase Custody as its custodian. Regulators in the United States had not yet approved any applications for spot ETFs on Bitcoin.

Changes in Ethereum staking in 2023

Ethereum's trade volume changed in 2023 due to the rollout of the Shapella (Shanghai and Cappella) upgrade. The update allowed investors to withdraw (unstake) Ethereum deposited into the network. Staking can be somewhat compared to depositing money at a bank, where one would submit money to be held and gains interest as time goes by. Lido has the highest staking pool (a platform that allows for staking) in Ethereum, higher than major crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken.

American adults with a relatively high income were more likely than adults with lower incomes to hold cryptocurrency as an investment tool. This is according to an annual household survey in the United States, that asked about how and why consumers would be using the digital asset. Seven percent of American adults used crypto solely for investment purposes, while only two percent utilized it for payment transaction. The market share of cryptocurrency as a dedicated payment method was relatively low in the U.S., like in other countries. A low market size in e-commerce The impression from this survey - most consumers viewing crypto primarily as an investment vehicle, not a day-to-day payments tool - is backed up elsewhere. A 2023 ranking of the most used payment methods in global e-commerce, based on transaction value, predicted cryptocurrency was used in about 17.5 billion U.S. dollars' worth of online shopping, or 0.2 percent of the total market in 2023. A forecast on the value of crypto payments in e-commerce predicted a 0.5 percent market share by 2026. Uncertainty in the industry Central banks had a clear opinion on whether blockchain has a future part to play in the global payments industry: Nearly two-thirds of central banks worldwide were "unsure". 15 percent of the respondents imagined domestic use cases for blockchain payments, against 13 percent who pictured cross-border solutions. Interestingly, payment industry professionals believed blockchain and cryptocurrency a less important payment tech trends in 2024 than real-time payments or tokenization.

Since 2022, hacks were the main reason behind cryptocurrency losses. 2021 was the exception during this time period, when fraud led to the highest volume of funds lost. This is according to data from web3 crowdsourced security platform Immunefi. While the source does not clearly state how it estimated its figures, it claims that over 60 percent of all cryptocurrency losses between 2021 and 2024 can be attributed to hacks.

Consumers from countries in Africa, Asia, and South America were most likely to be an owner of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, in 2024. This conclusion can be reached after combining 55 different surveys from the Statista's Consumer Insights over the course of that year. Nearly one out of three respondents to Statista's survey in Nigeria, for instance, mentioned they either owned or use a digital coin, rather than six out of 100 respondents in the United States. This is a significant change from a list that looks at the Bitcoin (BTC) trading volume in 44 countries: There, the United States and Russia were said to have traded the highest amounts of this particular virtual coin. Nevertheless, African and Latin American countries are noticeable entries in that list too. Daily use, or an investment tool? The survey asked whether consumers either owned or used cryptocurrencies but does not specify their exact use or purpose. Some countries, however, are more likely to use digital currencies on a day-to-day basis. Nigeria increasingly uses mobile money operations to either pay in stores or to send money to family and friends. Polish consumers could buy several types of products with a cryptocurrency in 2019. Opposed to this is the country of Vietnam: Here, the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a payment method is forbidden. Owning some form of cryptocurrency in Vietnam as an investment is allowed, however. Which countries are more likely to invest in cryptocurrencies? Professional investors looking for a cryptocurrency-themed ETF were more often found in Europe than in the United or China, according to a survey in early 2020. Most of the largest crypto hedge fund managers with a location in Europe in 2020, were either from the United Kingdom or Switzerland - the country with the highest cryptocurrency adoption rate in Europe according to Statista's Global Consumer Survey. Whether this had changed by 2021 was not yet clear.

The value of crypto lost to security threats grew over nine times between 2020 and 2021, with one incident in August 2021 accounting for 610 million U.S. dollars stolen. During this particular incident - claimed to be one of the biggest cryptocurrency heists of all time - an individual person targeted the Ethereum-based DeFi application Poly Network after exploited a flaw in the Network's code. After Poly Network pleaded with the hacker, the anonymous hacker handed back about half of the money - 342 million U.S. dollars - claiming he did the hack "for fun".

Bitcoin and Ethereum together made up more than half of the crypto market in 2024, with newer coins losing out. One example is Polkadot or DOT, an altcoin that went live in August 2020 but, at first, increasingly attracting interest in 2021 as it was seen as a viable competitor to Ethereum's blockchain structure. Indeed, six months after its initial release, the value of Polkadot was already six times higher than it during its launch. By 2024, the market position of Ethereum had not changed that much.

At the end of December 2024, the Ethereum cryptocurrency had been processed well to 39 million times on-chain that month. This was about three times that of the more commonly known rival Bitcoin, which saw a total of 12.7 million transactions that month. Other leading cryptocurrencies also saw significantly less transaction activity. What kind of transactions were these? Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies which owe their credibility to their technology rather than a central bank. Many of the transactions in this statistic involve cryptocurrency exchanges which exchange these coins for other currencies, including traditional currencies such as U.S. dollars or euros. In selected countries, Bitcoin ATMs also dispense the local currency in exchange for Bitcoin. However, few retailers accept that or any other cryptocurrency on a large scale. Cryptocurrency as an investment Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts point to the high market capitalization of their favorite cryptocurrencies. Moreover, the currency price is an important factor. The price volatility of Bitcoin and others attracts investors, hoping to buy low and sell high.

The proportion of respondents aged between 28 and 43 who utilize cryptocurrencies for crypto purposes was significantly higher compared to the other age groups. This is according to a survey held in 14 different countries across North America, Europe, and Latin America. When it came to gender, men were more likely to use digital currencies than women.

Crypto trader Binance ranked among the largest cryptocurrency exchangers in the world in 2024, with trading volume that was several times as high as Bybit or OKX. It should be noted that these figures are separate from platforms Binance.US, Binance TR or Binance.KR. The platform from the Cayman Islands faced investigations from the U.S. SEC, which came to a head in November 2023. Binance did not rank as the most used cryptocurrency exchanges used by consumers in the United States. Binance's settlement with the U.S. In November 2023, Binance agreed to pay a four billion U.S. dollar settlement with United States agencies — one of the biggest corporate fines in U.S. history. The U.S. Department of Justice investigated the platform for years for failure to prevent money laundering and growing crypto theft. The company's founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to the charges, agreeing to step down. Zhao would remain as the company's majority shareholder. The U.S. Treasury announced Binance will be subject to five years of monitoring and “significant compliance undertakings, including to ensure Binance’s complete exit from the United States.” Mixed signals from crypto companies The Binance settlement occurred in a month when overall crypto trading volume recorded its highest numbers for all of 2023. One of the main causes is the sudden popularity of FTT, a token released by FTX — the company founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. The developments surrounding Binance caused investors to move away from Binance's stablecoin BNB to the stablecoin from FTX. Earlier in November 2023, however, Coinbase saw its shares fall after announcing its quarterly performance figures.

The estimated time with which Kraken would confirm a deposit of certain cryptocurrencies varied from between near-instantaneous to up to several hours. Bitcoin, for instance, could take around 40 minutes - depending on the fees involved - whereas tokens like Cardano or Solana could be handled almost immediately. The transaction speed matters as it indicates which cryptocurrency is more efficient. A higher efficiency means that the blockchain underneath the coin is more capable of transferring data from one party to the other and confirm transactions. Transaction speed can be influenced by several factors, including block time, block size, transaction fees, and network traffic.

FTX's collapse in November 2022 meant that the market share of Binance and other leading crypto exchanges changed significantly from one month to the next. Binance, for instance, regained some of the market share it had lost between September and October 2022, growing by 0.8 percentage points in the month of November. Kraken, especially, was affected as the increase of one percentage point is the largest it had seen since 2021. The strong market position of Binance can also be observed when investigating the trading for crypto pairs on such exchanges, such as for Bitcoin - with trades on Binance that involve both Bitcoin and stablecoins being common. News that Binance was to take over FTX in 2022 initially led to a crypto trading volume that was two to four times higher than it was in the previous days.

A league table of the 120 cryptocurrencies with the highest market cap reveals how diverse each crypto is and potentially how much risk is involved when investing in one. Bitcoin (BTC), for instance, had a so-called "high cap" - a market cap worth more than 10 billion U.S. dollars - indicating this crypto project has a certain track record or, at the very least, is considered a major player in the cryptocurrency space. This is different in Decentralize Finance (DeFi), where Bitcoin is only a relatively new player. A concentrated market The number of existing cryptocurrencies is several thousands, even if most have a limited significance. Indeed, Bitcoin and Ethereum account for nearly 75 percent of the entire crypto market capitalization. As crypto is relatively easy to create, the range of projects varies significantly - from improving payments to solving real-world issues, but also meme coins and more speculative investments. Crypto is not considered a payment method While often talked about as an investment vehicle, cryptocurrencies have not yet established a clear use case in day-to-day life. Central bankers found that usefulness of crypto in domestic payments or remittances to be negligible. A forecast for the world's main online payment methods took a similar stance: It predicts that cryptocurrency would only take up 0.2 percent of total transaction value by 2027.

The number of people who either used or held a cryptocurrency in the United States was 5 million higher at the end of 2022 than in 2021. This is according to Statista estimates, compiled from various reports and research. The numbers provided are from Statista's Crypto pulse check, a quarterly report aimed at mapping out the size and characteristics of crypto markets in 50 different countries worldwide in a cross-comparable way. The anonymity behind cryptocurrencies – a key feature in their design – makes it difficult to find reliable data on a country-level. Consequently, data research on how many people worldwide use this new form of money is in its infancy. The numbers shown here should therefore be regarded as estimates.

Bitcoin's role within the overall cryptocurrency market picked up in 2024, whilst Ethereum lost terrain to currencies like Solana. This according to a metric that compares a coin's market cap relative to the overall crypto market called "dominance". This ratio shows how strong, for example, Bitcoin is compared to all the other cryptocurrencies. A comparison between Bitcoin and multiple other coins reveals that the shape of the crypto market has changed dramatically over time.

Download figures for crypto wallets in 2024 were much closer to the all-time high reached in the middle of 2021 than in other years. This after comparing download figures from several apps, including Coinbase, Blockchain.com, Metamask, Trust, and Binance, among others. Whilst the ten most popular cryptocurrency wallets registered roughly 2.2 million downloads in December 2020, one month later it had grown to over 5.6 million. It is around this time the price of Bitcoin grew significantly, and other cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin attracted more and more general interest.