We introduced a new method to estimate the total number of crypto owners based on on-chain data (for Bitcoin and Ethereum):
- The number of users in crypto exchanges can be used to approximate the overall number of users in crypto space;
- Most exchanges use an architecture called “deposit sweeping” to handle crypto deposit inflows. We can estimate the number of users in an exchange by counting its on-chain deposit addresses;
- By adding the number of users from some largest exchanges today (with adjustments) and dividing the overall market share of those exchanges, we can therefore reasonably estimate the overall number of bitcoin owners;
- The exercise will be conducted for both bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) to estimate BTC and ETH population separately;
- Lastly, we will scale up the number by considering non BTC / ETH owners as well as non-exchange users.
- The final estimate of the number of cryptocurrencies owners in the world is around 66 million;
- The above number is a proxy only and subjected to various limitations and caveats.
To read the full version of the On-Chain Market Sizing Report, read the PDF version here.
