How Many People Use Cryptocurrency in 2024?

How Many People Currently Use Cryptocurrency?

According to recent surveys by crypto data provider Triple-A, there are now over 300 million cryptocurrency users worldwide as of early 2023. This represents a massive increase from an estimated 66 million users in May 2020 and just 35 million reported users in 2018 according to Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.

To put this 300 million figure into perspective, the current global crypto user base reflects approximately 4% of the estimated 7.9 billion world population today.

While still a statistical minority, this signals massively wider mainstream digital currency adoption compared to five years ago when less than 0.5% of the globe owned Bitcoin or altcoins.

Driving this monumental 10x growth in user numbers since 2018 are twin retail and institutional cryptocurrency tailwinds across both developed and emerging economies:

• Wider public awareness and token availability
• Enhanced asset security assurances boosting trust
• Increased real-world utility and payment options
• Investor appetite for assets uncorrelated to legacy markets
• Mainstream corporate endorsements lending legitimacy

Delving deeper, let‘s analyze the demographic distribution and geographic concentration of the 300 million-strong crypto-investing public embracing digital currencies.

The Demographics of Cryptocurrency Owners

Expanding on baseline user figures, examining the profile of current crypto owners reveals several thought-provoking trends according to a recent survey by UK exchange Gemini:

• Gender: Approximately 79% of cryptocurrency users today are male, while 21% are female. The disproportion likely owes to wider technological literacy and risk tolerance levels across genders on average historically. However, the share of female crypto participants has gradually risen each consecutive year – from 5% in 2017 to now over a fifth of all investors.

• Age: Over 60% of all cryptocurrency users fall into the 18-34 age range bracket. In particular, tech-savvy millennials and Generation Z display high enthusiasm for digital currencies – aided by greater digital fluency and skepticism of traditional finance. Those aged 50 and over comprise just 13% of crypto investors.

• Education: Around 80% of current crypto investors have an undergraduate degree or higher. This linkage relates partially to the perceived complexity of distributed ledger and digital currency concepts – attracting those with technology, economics and mathematics-intensive educations.

• Income: Contrary to expectations, cryptocurrency penetration skews higher among lower income bands – those earning under $35K annually represent over 37% of all users. However ownership measured in terms of total dollar value invested grows in proportion with income levels.

In summary, the composite profile of today‘s representative cryptocurrency participant comprises young, college-educated men from an array of income segments. Nevertheless as mainstream exposure extends, user heterogeneity across age, gender and income lines should continue improving ahead.

Which Countries Have the Most Cryptocurrency Users?

Another valuable insight derived from the data is determining which national jurisdictions worldwide currently harbor the most digital currency owners.

According to one mid-2022 Finder study cross-referencing adoption metrics by country, below rank as the top 7 regions today driving cryptocurrency participation:

Global Cryptocurrency Ownership/Use by Country:

India boasts by far the largest national community of cryptocurrency owners globally, with a staggering 100 million total residents actively investing in or transacting with Bitcoin, Ether or altcoins.

Behind India, other emerging and developing economies across Africa, Southeast Asia and South America similarly demonstrate pronounced retail enthusiasm for digital currencies compared to their regional bank-based systems.

Here crypto helps citizens circumvent currency devaluation pressures via dollar-pegged stablecoins, send fast inexpensive payments internationally, and access early-stage wealth creation vehicles.

These grassroots adoptions trends dispel myths that cryptocurrency use remains an exclusively developed country phenomenon – given major developing world participation across demographic lines.

As smartphone access continues proliferating globally, so should retail and consumer onboarding into decentralized Web3 money systems.

Institutional Cryptocurrency Adoption: By the Numbers

Beyond dominantly retail usage statistics covered so far, another core narrative is the successful transition towards formal institutional cryptocurrency adoption across the enterprise, banking and investment landscape:

• As major accounting firm Ernst & Young highlights, already 77% of multinational investment banks experiment with crypto services ranging from custody to asset trading,

• Over $10 billion in corporate cash reserves are now held in US dollar stablecoins according to JPMorgan, as Fortune 500‘s soccer enterprises embrace higher-yield crypto savings accounts,

• By mid-2022, 81% of traditional hedge fund managers surveyed confirmed active investment mandates in Bitcoin, decentralized finance and digital asset startups,

• And major custodians like BNY Mellon, State Street and Northern Trust manage hundreds of institutional crypto clients worth over $300 billion combined.

These metrics quantify the accelerating pace at which cryptocurrencies now successfully permeate formal global finance – unlocking trillions in dormant capital flows ahead if growth stays consistent.

And businesses worldwide appear equally convinced of crypto‘s progressive future. Per one Fortune 500 CIO survey:

• 70% of US & EU executives anticipate holding digital currencies on balance sheets by 2026.

• Over 75% expect to adopt smart contract-based financial processes by 2030.

Hence whether considering informal retail participation or large-scale enterprise utilization, established institutions are strategically positioning to embrace decentralized blockchain networks running parallel to legacy clearance systems.

Why Has Cryptocurrency Adoption Increased?

Now that we‘ve quantified the data on current user figures plus geographic/demographic concentration trends, the natural next question becomes – why has adoption so accelerated in recent years driving mainstream visibility?

There are several major interlinked factors responsible for this exponential crypto breakout beyond transient hype – centered on deepening real-world utility:

Lower Transaction Fees

Foremost for users globally, sending cross-border payments via major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, XRP or more delivers vastly quicker settlement versus legacy remittance avenues – along near-zero costs irrespective of transaction size.

Case in point: in March 2022, a sizable $100+ million Litecoin transaction was confirmed successfully in under 3 minutes for a negligible $0.40 total fee using crypto rails. Compare this to average wire costs approaching 5-10% on such values.

Such radical speed and cost savings are almost unheard of through traditional correspondent banking networks, driving preference for direct peer-to-peer crypto transfers.

Investment Opportunities

Secondly, the extreme daily/annual price volatility across decentralized currencies allows traders to net uncorrelated short and long-term speculative gains during bull market runs.

In 2021 for instance at the peak of the DeFi bubble for example, hitherto obscure altcoins like Solana (SOL) briefly gained over 11,000%+ amid acute retail interest – vastly outstripping returns from mainstream equity and bond markets alike.

And though risks are higher, even relatively established top 10 coins like Ethereum and XRP recorded triple to near 10x price appreciation at intervals over the past 24 months as network fundamentals solidified.

Attractive return prospects coupled with low correlating price factors will thus continue enticing retail and institutional investors at scale ahead.

Increasing Business Acceptance

Thirdly, merchant acceptance of direct cryptocurrency payments across online and physical world channels has risen exponentially. Today, over 12,000 AMC theaters, Microsoft, AT&T, Twitch, Norwegian Air, and an array of services facilitate crypto transactions using established payment processors like BitPay.

Ecommerce juggernauts like Shopify, Rakuten and Amazon also permit select cryptocurrencies usage by partner merchants and customers, normalizing adoption further.

And innovators like crypto debit card providers Cryptopay even allow users to indirectly spend holdings from among 40+ coins via contactless Visa/MC debit cards universally accepted at 60+ million merchants worldwide.

This expanding ability for crypto owners to deploy holdings for common real-world purchases reinforces digital currencies as bonafide mediums of exchange – attracting further mainstream user signups.

Leading Drivers of Consumer Crypto Usage

Different retail user groups exhibit different primary incentives for owning or transacting via cryptocurrencies:

1. Speculative Investors lured by extraordinary upside return potential during market peaks – despite innate volatility risks.

2. Technology Enthusiasts interested in decentralization, dApps, smart contracts, NFTs – propelled by intellectual curiosity surrounding blockchain systems.

3. Payment Transactors needing faster, cheaper remittance alternatives to incumbent networks through crypto onramps. May use stablecoins to preserve currency valuation between transfers.

4. Underbanked Consumer Groups unable to easily access traditional financing and investments in their jurisdictions – turn to crypto as a Plan B to grow income streams informally.

Hence consumer motivations for entering the crypto economy diversify extensively – beyond myopic assumptions that it mainly facilitates suspect payments. As solutions touching everyday problems proliferate via tokenization, adoption increments seem highly probable if not inevitable long-term.

How Many Cryptocurrencies Exist Today?

Beyond enumerating total owners, another yardstick of growing crypto traction worldwide is tracking the sheer number of distinct digital currencies available for investment and transactions globally.

Per aggregates on CoinMarketCap, there exists over 9,000 cryptocurrencies today at time of writing, excluding dormant projects. For perspective, in January 2021 there were less than 2,000 legitimate altcoins and tokens in circulation.

Hence in under 3 years, the diverse digital asset count has effectively quintupled – as blockchain innovators prolifically experiment with new models like decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), metaverse environments and more.

Driving this Cambrian explosion in novel coins and assets is rising venture capital, flourishing development ecosystems like Flow and Solana, and waves of speculative retail activity especially around recent sectors like GameFi and Social Tokens.

Out of the total currency mix, flagship Bitcoin remarkably still constitutes 42% of the overall crypto market capitalization closely trailed by Ethereum – indicating investor preferences still concentrated among relatively stable high network value brands.

After Bitcoin and Ethereum, smaller fixed supply coins like XRP, Cardano, Litecoin and early-mover altcoins comprise the more mature portion of cryptoassets demonstrating growing real-world transactional usage across payments, decentralized contracts and compliance mandates so far.

However the vast majority remains centered around emergent Web3 segments like MetaFi, Social Money etc as retail speculation pivots across themes. This suggests much scope exists for the wider cryptoasset ecosystem to mature further ahead.

Supporting Crypto Market Infrastructure Scaling Up

Fueling this ballooning array of new digital token experiments and launches is parallel growth in foundational cryptocurrency exchange and trading infrastructure enabling users to actively speculate, invest and transact coins.

Case in point – exchange numbers act as bellwether for broader ecosystem development. And on this metric, there exist over 600 operational centralized crypto exchanges worldwide per recent CoinGecko data – supplying retail and institutional-grade trading, pricing data and fiat liquidity access to global crypto markets.

For comparison during crypto‘s early breakout phase in mid-2017, barely 50 relatively obscure offshore exchanges serviced early Bitcoin traders and mining groups in embargoed markets worldwide.

Hence over just the past 5 years, reputable exchange platform counts have expanded over 12x already – with comprehensive crypto exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, Kraken and KuCoin today leading the industry for liquidity depth, asset availability, active addressing concerns.

Besides centralized exchanges, non-custodial decentralized exchanges (DEXs) built on blockchains themselves have emerged as an increasingly favored channel for many crypto owners preferring more permissionless and transparent exchange models.

Here trading bots source bespoke deals via automated liquidity pools instead of traditional order books. Uniswap and PancakeSwap currently stand out as the largest DEXs serving the growing DeFi user community.

As both retail and institutional digital asset usage permeates worldwide across payments, investments and financial services, supporting exchange platforms and market infrastructure will likely need to scale up substantially to meet surging demand.

Despite exponential growth already, available figures suggest the wider crypto handling and trading ecosystem still has significant runway room to evolve compared to throughput capabilities seen in mainstream equity and FX exchange spheres.

Outlook for Cryptocurrency Going Forward

Pulling together the varied threads covered in this broad-spanning analysis so far – what are near to mid-term projections around crypto adoption patterns ahead?

According to one survey of fintech academics and industry experts by research firm Finder, cryptocurrency ownership rates could feasibly eclipse 1 billion worldwide users by the end of 2030 – representing over 13% of the global population then.

More conservatively, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood – known for lofty prognostications – asserts there may be 500 million+ active blockchain wallet users over the same timeline. Though still a minority share percentage-wise, such user figures cement technological relevance given cryptocurrencies did not exist 15 years ago.

Other thought leaders like Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead argue that assuming progressive government legislation, ramping institutional investment, improving security standards and infrastructure scalability etc – crypto usage penetration could top 50% worldwide within the 2040-2050 timeframe.

And given estimates that emerging/developing markets account for the majority of unbanked/underbanked adults internationally, cryptocurrencies and blockchain ecosystems logically present game-changing financial inclusion opportunities ahead if key regulatory obstacles are managed appropriately in said regions.

On balance, as more global sectors witness tangible business cases manifest through tokenization and decentralization, it is highly probable that within this decade digital currencies and assets progress from their current speculative niche status towards matching the ubiquity and visibility of institutional equity and bond markets over the long run.

Key Takeaways – How Many Crypto Users Exist Today

Given the breadth of terrain covered, let‘s recap the salient responses to our original question posed – how many people actively use cryptocurrency worldwide today?

• Total estimated cryptocurrency users: approximately 300 million people hold or transact with crypto assets as of 2023, representing nearly 4% of the global population or 1 in 25 adults.

• This mirrors exponential growth from just 35 million total users in 2018 according to available figures – equating to 10x user adoption in 5 years as major visibility drivers manifest across retail and institutional categories

• Countries with notably high crypto adoption span India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Ukraine, Kenya, United States and United Kingdom – where upwards of 15%+ residents actively own Bitcoin, Ether or other altcoins already

• The typical cryptocurrency user profile skews towards younger tech-savvy individuals in their 20s/30s with tertiary education but still demonstrating increasing income/gender diversity recently

• Main drivers for surging adoption rates tie to growing asset utility for lower-cost payments, investment upside, business acceptance and technology enthusiasm – beyond transient speculation

• Supporting the widening owner base are now over 9,000 tradable cryptocurrencies and 600+ exchanges catering to broader specialized needs – which keep proliferating as innovation gathers steam

In closing, while risks exist given the relative nascency of blockchain technology, rapidly expanding usage metrics across consumer and industry groups suggests crypto participation is here to stay as a increasingly relevant modern economic parallel to traditional banking and financial networks.