According to Crypto.com’s July 2021 study, the months in the first half of 2021 as well as May “were exceptionally strong months, driven by Bitcoin’s stellar performance.” Global crypto users grew from 106 million in January to 125 million in February 2021. By the end of March 2021, crypto users grew by 4 million to 129 million users and by the end of April 2021, it hit 142 million.
In the second quarter of the year, the growth was extraordinary, hitting a total of 221 million crypto users by the end of June 2021. In May, up to 61 million new crypto users got into crypto, growing from 142 million to 203 million crypto users. In June, up to 18 million new crypto users further pushed up the population of crypto users to 221 million.
As noted by Crypto.com, “it only took four months to double the global crypto population from 100 million to 200 million. By comparison, it took nine months to reach 100 million from 65 million since we began tracking these numbers.”
Interestingly, as the population of crypto users grows, the percentage of bitcoin and ethereum users appears to be dropping. According to Crypto.com study, “[n]ew challengers like Proof-of-Stake protocols and meme tokens showed great potential in May, especially after Bitcoin mining came under more scrutiny.” In May, Elon Musk had criticised the negative environmental impact of bitcoin mining. This spurred more interest in altcoins, especially meme coins such as Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE). Bitcoin market share has dropped from 67% in the new year of 2021 to 51% in June 2021. At the time of writing this piece, bitcoin’s dominance is 46.13% (CoinMarketCap). As more interest in altcoins grows, bitcoin dominance is expected to keep dropping.
Crypto exchanges included in Crypto.com’s “Measuring Global Crypto Users” study include Binance, Bitfinex, Bittrex, Crypto.com, FTX, Gemini, Huobi, Kraken, KuCoin, and Okex, among others.
What could this Crypto.com study mean to crypto asset buyers?
As more heavyweight companies and institutional investors adopt crypto assets, this will boost increasing interest in the crypto market. Beyond the crypto market, crypto adoption by these heavyweight companies and institutional investors is likely going to have an impact on the shape regulation would take in various countries. This, in turn, is expected to impact on the size and speed of crypto adoption. However this shapes out, one thing is clear: retail interest in crypto assets is growing fast, and institutional investors also want a bite. For the crypto asset buyer, first, it is relatively still early days. The potentials of the crypto market remain huge. Second, bitcoin may have been the biggest part of the crypto story, altcoins will increasingly matter too. But sticking with the substance and not chasing shadows in the ever-dynamic, risky, and volatile crypto market may make a big difference.
