Over 100 Million People Hold Bitcoin, Altcoins Globally - Report

Crypto usership is going up at an exponential rate, per researchers at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, with over 100 million people worldwide now making use of cryptoassets – a massive increase from the 35 million figure the same researches identified just two years.

According to a new study, the number of identity-verified cryptoasset users has shot up from 35 million globally to “101 million unique cryptoasset users across 191 million accounts.”

The paper’s authors, Blandin et al, believe that decreased anonymity has contributed to the ease with which researchers can identify crypto users – as well as the fact that many crypto users now make use of multiple crypto wallets.

They wrote,

“This 189% increase in users may be explained by both a rise in the number of accounts (which increased by 37%), as well as a greater share of accounts being systematically linked to an individual’s identity, allowing us to increase our estimate of minimum user numbers associated with accounts on each service provider.”

The researchers said that despite limitations to their methodology "there are reasons to believe that this estimate offers a reliable approximate figure of the total number of cryptoasset holders globally."

Also, they stated that the survey’s findings were in line with those of other researchers, noting that “Other recent consumer research also highlights an increase in cryptoasset ownership. A study commissioned by the UK financial regulator estimated an increase of 78%.”

"This is significant because it's a nice round number, and because their 2018 figure is widely cited as one of the most reliable estimates for the number of users worldwide," Nic Carter, Partner at Castle Island Ventures and co-founder of crypto market analysis firm Coin Metrics, commented.

/cryptonews.com/