Global crypto adopters double to 221 million since January, Crypto.com study finds

By Gaia Lamperti

The number of crypto adopters more than doubled in the first half of 2021, reaching 221 million users. This is the main finding of Crypto.com latest research report on the global market size of crypto users conducted in June and July 2021.

The study compiled data from the 24 largest crypto platforms worldwide, including Binance, Huobi, FTX and many others, utilising an improved research methodology that assesses on-chain data with additional blended parameters to estimate the number of global crypto owners. The data on adoption refers to the main digital currencies, Bitcoin, Ethereum and altcoin, offering a comprehensive picture of how the crypto population trended in the first half of 2021.

“Our Research and Insights team have continued to fine-tune their market assessments, giving us and the broader community a clear understanding of the market,” Kris Marszalek, Co-Founder and CEO of Crypto.com commented about the report, adding that the growth he has been seeing in the industry is “very encouraging.”

Key takeaways of the July 2021 Crypto.com study:

• The number of global crypto users reached 221 million in June 2021
• It only took four months to double the global crypto population from 100 million to 200 million
•  Although Bitcoin drove growth in January and February, substantial growth in altcoin adoption in May led to a massive surge in crypto users, from 143 million at the end of April to 221 million as of June
• Altcoin adoption was likely spurred by the influx of new users who were interested in tokens like Shiba Token (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE), among others
• Likely events that drove crypto adoption were the massive institutional adoption and facilitation of cryptocurrency trading, along with the celebrity effect from Elon Musk

According to the Crypto.com study, it only took four months to double the global crypto user base, in comparison to the nine months it took for the global crypto user base to reach 100 million from the initial 65 million in May 2020 when the platform began releasing this report.

The accelerated adoption in the second half of 2020 was driven by several remarkable events: the sudden rise of DeFi in August, PayPal introducing crypto purchases in the US in November and increased institutional crypto adoption in December (i.e, Greyscale, MicroStrategy). In 2020, crypto adoption accelerated further thanks to outstanding institutions, such as Tesla, Visa and Mastercard, that embraced cryptocurrency use. Furthermore, this year, El Salvador became the world’s first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

When it comes to the breakdown into Bitcoin vs. Ethereum ownership, users reveal strong upward trends. Bitcoin led growth from January to April while Ethereum saw significant growth in May and June as institutional investors showed to favour ETH.

The landmark event that caused a drop both in price and popularity of BTC was Elon Musk’s criticism of Bitcoin mining and environmental impact. Since then, according to Crypto.com’s report, Bitcoin and Ethereum came under scrutiny and have been losing their market shares, opening the space for new challengers like Proof-of Stake protocols and meme tokens.

On the other hand, Crypto.com found that this shift also led to altcoin ownership increase by almost 50%, among which the most popular ones are SHIB and DOGE. If in January 2021 the composition of cryptocurrencies holders was 67% BTC, 13% ETH and 20% altcoins, by June 2021 the figures changed to 51% BTC, 10% ETH and 38% others.