A lot of people are still wondering about the question of how many bitcoins are there and left? How many bitcoin owners are active globally? 

While it’s difficult to give an exact number, we have tried to gather data from different sources to give you the answer. It can be said that currently there are about 25 million Bitcoin users around the globe who are owning the coin for many intentions. 

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The total number of Bitcoins is limited to 21 million units, and that is also the reason why Bitcoin is very valuable because once all the coins are mined, you can’t create more Bitcoin by any means. 

At the moment, there are 18,082,250 Bitcoins in existence (December 2019), and so there are about 2,917,750 Bitcoins left to be mined. In other words, over 86% of Bitcoin are issued so far. However, the exact number of Bitcoin( BTC)  in circulation is much lesser, due to many Bitcoins are lost forever over time. 

For example, if a coin owner lost his coin private key, or if that person just passed away, these coins will no longer be tracked or used. 

We answered how many bitcoins are there now, we might as well know how many people own bitcoin. It's a more valuable question for bitcoin traders.

Knowing how many people own bitcoin is important in many aspects. As an investor, you would like to know whether the network growing status and make a decision to invest in the coin or other assets. 

On the other hand, the increasing number of bitcoin owners is a good signal for businesses, banks, users and others to take part in this payment system. For the network developers, they will use this data to analyze, propose methods for improvements. 

For a regular trader, estimating the number of Bitcoin users can help you to

√  Compare the Bitcoin network developing status against other coins.

√  Verify Bitcoin's popularity and its application in real life.

√  Realize whether the network is still growing or become stagnant.

While it is impossible to determine the exact number of Bitcoin owners, many studies have been carried out to propose this figure.

The University of Cambridge has estimated that there are about 2.9 million to 5.8 million users that are actively using Bitcoin in 2017. An aggregated study by Bitcoin Market Journal shows that there are about 25 million active users by 2019 all over the world.

Later we will discuss different ways of measuring the number of Bitcoin users based on Bitcoin wallets, Bitcoin active users on famous Bitcoin wallet providers, etc, to see the current trend. But what we can confirm here is that the number of Bitcoin owners are steadily increasing.

It is interesting to know that Bitcoin owners are in relation to demographics. People with different ages, genders, locations, etc have a different perception of the cryptocurrency, therefore some groups own more crypto coins than others. 

A demographic study of Finder.com in 2019 shows that

●  A rising number of Americans own crypto coins from 8% in 2018 to 15% in 2019.

● Men own twice more than women owners.

● About 36.5 million Americans own cryptocurrency with an average of $ 5,447 in coins.

●  Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency, next is Ethereum.

●  Millennials (aged 22-37) owns more than any group, counting for 17%. Gen X makes up to 9% and the Baby Boomers is just about 2%.

Finding a rough estimation of how many people use bitcoin is an overwhelming task because users may use nicknames, or they can have many wallets at once. Therefore, the exact number of Bitcoin owners is not clearly defined. 

However, knowing this figure is important to see whether the Bitcoin Network is actually growing or not.

There are a few ways to track active Bitcoin owners by examining the Bitcoin wallet, active Bitcoin owners of largest wallet providers, and taking into account of emerging markets in Africa, South America. It can be said that there are about 25 million Bitcoin users globally now.

Let’s see everything in detail.

Over 42 Million Bitcoin Wallets

A recent study by Stastita, a data research firm, the number of wallet users has increased from 6.7 million in Quarter 1, 2016 up to 42.29 million in Quarter 4, 2019, confirming a constant growth in the numbers of coin owners worldwide. However, one user can own one or more wallets therefore the real active users should be lower than 42 million.

Figure 1: Number of blockchain wallets worldwide - source: statista

About 13 Million Active Users On Coinbase

Coinbase is the most popular cryptocurrency wallet and exchange provider, operating in 32 different countries. The active users on Coinbase are about 13 million users, indicating at least 13 million to 32 million users owning Bitcoin. 

We also notice that Coinbase does not operate in several big markets such as China, Japan, South Korea, Africa. In these countries, Bitcoin users have other wallet providers such as LBC, Gemini, Kraken, etc. As a result, the number of global Bitcoin users globally should be higher than Coinbase users.

A Growing Number Of Bitcoin OwnUsers In Africa 

Africa countries like Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria are among the top five countries searching for Bitcoin on Google Trends. Besides, data of eToro shows up to 571% growth of Bitcoin users in South Africa. These figures suggest that there is a huge adoption of Bitcoin in these emerging countries in recent years. 

Although the number of Bitcoin users are growing constantly, we noticed that this figure is still lower than other popular payment systems such as Paypal, VISA, Mastercard. Paypal has 235 million active users, while Mastercard takes up to a near 640 million users, and VISA is still the most popular choice, boasting over 1 billion users globally.

From what we have known, the Bitcoin network keeps expanding and growing across nations and there are a lot of spaces for Bitcoin to grow its active users, especially when the Bitcoin halving event is about to come in June 2020. 

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How Many Ethereum Are There In Circulation?

By 12th Dec 2019, there is a near of 109 million Ethereum in supply. Every 14 seconds, a new block is created. Because 5 ETH is created for each block, therefore on every day there are 17280 new ETHs added to the Network. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum does not have the cap of the blockchain.

How Many Bitcoin Miners Are There?

You may be surprised by the statistics: There are about 100,000 Bitcoin miners who are hashing away at this blockchain.

How Many Bitcoin Users Own At Least 1 BTC?

There are about 732,000 Bitcoin Addresses Own At Least 1 BTC.

How Many People Who Are Holding Bitcoin For The Long-Term?

A study conducted by Chainalysis in 2018 shows that there are about 4.8 million users hold Bitcoin for speculative purposes. This group accounts for 30% of the total bitcoin users.

Who Has Most Bitcoins In The World?

First, the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is believed to own over 1 million BTC. However, it is also noticed that he has never used the coin until now. Next, Chinese mining farms are accountable for over 20% of Bitcoin mined all over the world. Last but not least, the FBI is also believed to own over 15% of Bitcoin in the market.

Bitcoin owners are growing around the world from the most developed countries like the USA, Japan, to economically troubled countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia. Especially when the halving event in 2020 happens, there will be a lot of changes in the network that can skyrocket the Bitcoin price and expand the total number of Bitcoin users.

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