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Crypto Adoption in 2023
Crypto Adoption in 2023 Report
The crypto.com report provides updated estimates on the state of global cryptocurrency adoption in 2023. The research combines on-chain data analysis with blended parameters to estimate the number of cryptocurrency owners worldwide.
The key finding is that crypto adoption saw substantial growth in 2023, with the total number of owners reaching 580 million by December, up 34% from 432 million in January. This growth occurred despite challenging macroeconomic conditions like monetary tightening, geopolitical conflicts, and lingering pandemic impacts.
Bitcoin owners specifically grew 33% from 222 million to 296 million during 2023. Bitcoin's growth was largely driven by new developments that expanded its functionality, like the emergence of Bitcoin ETFs and the Ordinals protocol which enabled NFT minting on Bitcoin's network. Institutional interest in Bitcoin also remained strong. Ethereum saw even faster growth of 39%, its user base expanding from 89 million to 124 million owners. Ethereum's growth was spurred largely by liquid staking, which became widely popular after the Shanghai upgrade enabled staked ETH withdrawals.
Both Bitcoin and Ethereum saw exceptional adoption growth in Q4 2023 in particular. This coincided with mounting excitement around ETF developments for both coins. The coins also saw significant price surges during Q4. Additionally, Bitcoin saw major traction for new protocols like Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens, attracting diverse investors.
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