In 2023, about 148 million people worldwide held cryptocurrencies, increasing the total number of users by 34% to 580 million. 51% of them own Bitcoin (BTC) and 21% own Ethereum (ETH).
According to the annual report by Crypto.com, the number of crypto users grew by 34% in 2023. At the beginning of the year, about 432 million people owned digital assets, and by the end of the year, the number reached 580 million.
Analysts also found out that more than half of crypto users own BTC. Over 74 million people bought Bitcoin for the first time in 2023, increasing the global number of its holders by 33% to 296 million people, which is about 51% of the total number of users. Analysts cited the main catalysts for BTC’s growing popularity as:
- the development of spot Bitcoin ETFs;
- the adoption of the Ordinals protocol;
- high interest from institutional investors.
Last year, about 35 million people also decided to become ETH owners, increasing the global number of users of the largest altcoin by 39% to 124 million people. In total, ETH is owned by about 21% of the total number of digital asset owners worldwide. Analysts attribute the rise in popularity to the implementation of the Shanghai hard fork, which allowed users to withdraw staked ETH, triggering an increase in liquid staking protocols.
According to the report, 40.9% of crypto users own both BTC and ETH, while 42% own neither.
To analyze the market, Crypto.com experts used a unique methodology that combines on-chain data from crypto projects and a set of data from 23 crypto exchanges.
Analysts of Bitfinex predicted the growth in the number of crypto users to 1 billion people in 2024.
