Cryptocurrency is growing. This is something that most who are involved in the industry understand.
The question is how quickly is this happening? Also, will the pace increase in the future?
It is difficult to get exact numbers, something that we have known about for a long time. When dealing with wallets, it is akin to the early days of email. There was a time when you could sign up for hundreds of Gmail accounts. Google did not care.
Today, it is a much different story. There is a limit to how many you can have since they get tied to other identifying aspects of one's life such as a phone.
For the moment, cryptocurrency is not like this. We can sign up for as many Ethereum wallets as desired. The same is true for Bitcoin. Then we have Metamask, which can generate keys each time a new version is installed.
Hence, the number of wallets tells us very little.
That said, there are entities that filter through as much of the fluff as possible to isolate how many people are using cryptocurrency.
Global Cryptocurrency Growth - 659 Million
Crypto.com is one of the long time names in crypto. This entity is one that puts out an annual report about the state of crypto and how things are progressing.
Based on the latest analysis that ended on December 31, 2024, the industry saw double digit growth in the number of users.
Singapore, February 20, 2025 – Crypto.com has released its annual Crypto Market Sizing Report, showing that global cryptocurrency owners increased by 13% in 2024 – rising from 583 million in January 2024 to 659 million in December 2024.
This rise was supported by an influx of institutional crypto adoption, particularly through Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) ETFs that for the first time allowed investors access and exposure to trading to these digital assets. Additionally, positive momentum for pro-crypto policies, particularly in the United States following Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election, sparked a significant positive shift in the cryptocurrency market. This growth over the year was led by BTC owners growing by 13.1%, from 298 million in January to 337 million in December (accounting for 51.2% of global crypto owners), and ETH owners growing by 13.6%, from 125 million in January to 142 million in December (accounting for 21.7% of global crypto owners).
Personally, I tend not to get caught up in the preciseness of macro numbers. It is difficult to get accuracy in instances like this.
More importantly is the trend. The idea of a 13% growth rate, year-over-year, is not outlandish. In fact, considering what took place throughout the year, it makes sense.
There was a pump, post-election which could have validated earlier entry points to newer users.
Crypto Explosion
We are going to cross the 1 billion user level in the near future. Whether it is a year or two is hard to pinpoint.
However, my presumption is we are going to see an acceleration of the growth rate.
When looking at these numbers, one thing that stands out is the fact the focus is upon Bitcoin and Ethereum. It makes sense since these are the two leading chains. That said, it could be missing a sizeable part of the market. The tentacles of crypto are much further than just these two chains.
Since my conclusion is underrepresentation, we could already be near 1 billion users. Again, the exact number isn't crucial. What is vital, to me, is the acceleration in pace. I think this will come as regulatory clarity hits.
One of the reasons why I focus a lot on the stablecoin market is due to the fact that this is where I foresee a lot of utility being created. Here we are dealing with something people understand. As more major entities, like banks and Big Tech, get involved, we will see platforms operate using stablecoins. This will bring in a lot more users.
Naturally, it will also stimulate the debate between is this crypto or not. We can think of this as the XRP situation but on steroids. Purists will say this is not crypto whereas others will group it all in together.
Whatever the viewpoint, the accessibility to crypto is going to increase.
Internet Parallels
Some have equated the rise of crypto with that of the Internet. It is a fascination to parallel the growth rates.
We have all seen charts like this:
Then we get comparisons charts:
Source
Are we riding a similar wave? This is a conclusion I can accept. There is a growth curve that is consistent. As stated, I feel there is another uptick in the rate coming but, even if that doesn't happen, growth will continue.
AI adoptions rates are off the charts. This is one area where I think crypto adoption will accelerate. What this means is that number of human users might end up being secondary. We could see a time when wallet count becomes important since AI agents will each have their own wallet.
This would result in the numbers reaching tens of billions.
After all, humans will not be required to conduct crypto transactions. If we look at the volumes for stocks, since automation started in the 1980s, the numbers are now in the trillions.
I expect the same with crypto.