How Many People Are Actually Using Crypto Worldwide?

Researchers at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) estimate that true monthly crypto users number in the tens of millions, despite there being 220 million active crypto addresses tracked in September.

Eddy Lazzarin, CTO at a16z Crypto, and data scientist Daren Matsuoka note that counting unique users is challenging, as many people create multiple addresses for security or to engage in activities like airdrop farming.

To arrive at a more realistic user estimate, the a16z team used on-chain data to filter out addresses associated with bulk transactions or those maintaining near-zero balances. They also excluded addresses engaging in high-frequency transactions typically executed by bots, reasoning that human users cannot process transactions at such a rapid rate.

Off-chain data, such as wallet activity on MetaMask, further informed their analysis. Based on these methods, the researchers estimate a range of 30–60 million active monthly users—a small fraction of the total active addresses and only 5-10% of the 617 million global crypto owners noted by Crypto.com in June.

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This gap, they suggest, points to a significant opportunity: with the development of better infrastructure and apps, many passive crypto holders could become active, engaged users in the on-chain ecosystem.

Kosta Gushterov