Record number of active bitcoin addresses BTC News

The number of bitcoin wallet addresses that contain bitcoin has reached a new record. There are now 28.39 million active wallets. The previous record was set at the end of 2018, when there were 28.38 million wallets.

Best way to calculate number of bitcoin users

Investor Alex Thorn used data from blockchain analysis company Coinmetrics to uncover this trend. In response to the milestone, Thorn said that calculating the total number of bitcoin addresses with a balance is one of the best views we have to calculate the total number of individual bitcoin users.

The total number of bitcoin addresses that hold any amount of BTC has hit an all-time high at 28.39M addresses, surpassing the previous ATH or 28.38M (achieved on 1/10/18). (Data via @coinmetrics Pro)

Short thread ?? pic.twitter.com/y87ovxstWb

– Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) December 6, 2019

Gradual growth

If you look back at the history of bitcoin addresses, you will see a relatively constant, upward trend for the first nine years. At least to the high point of 28 million addresses in January 2018. But by the late spring of the same year, the total number of addresses that contain bitcoin fell by seven million to a low of around 21 million. After that low point, the number of addresses rose slowly to around 22 million before this number rose again in 2019.

But to use the number of addresses to measure the number of bitcoin users is not that black and white.

A user can have multiple addresses and many use scholarships

The American investor says that many cryptocurrency owners create a new address for every bitcoin transaction. The reason for this is security and privacy. This ensures that in theory at least, there can be many more addresses than users. A user can have many more addresses.

But there is something else to keep in mind. Many users choose to store their cryptocurrency with exchanges and saving services. Often such a service only has one receiving address on the blockchain, which contains a lot of customer money. They then use internal accounting to keep track of who owns which coins. Thorn says that one address actually represents many users, so this statistic may undermine the total of bitcoin users.

Indication of acceptance

Although these two factors play an important role, Thorn believes that the recipient addresses of trade fairs represent very many users. He therefore believes that the growing number of addresses can be seen as an indication of the growing acceptance of bitcoins.

This also leads to a semantic discussion, does a user count if he or she is not in charge of their own private keys? The well-known bitcoin evangelist Andres Antonopoulos doesn’t think so. He often says enough: not your keys, not your bitcoins.