Bitcoin statistics

The first digital currency and the largest to this day, bitcoin makes up 34% of the total value of all cryptocurrencies as of January 15, 2018.

Bitcoin’s founding is the stuff of legend: It was created in 2009 by the alias Satoshi Nakamoto, who had the idea that money shouldn’t be controlled exclusively by a centralized government or agency.

Since then, bitcoin has smashed all records — notably in December 2017, when it reached more than $19,000 per coin. It’s simply changed the way we think about money.

Key statistics about bitcoin:

• 16.8 million bitcoin are in circulation as of January 16, 2018.
• Bitcoin is unrestricted — meaning it isn’t regulated specifically — in 107 countries out of 251.
• The richest bitcoin partial wallet contains 179,203 bitcoin — or more than $2.4 million in US dollars.

Who uses bitcoin?

• Women comprise only 3% of those in the bitcoin community.
• A 2015 CoinDesk survey revealed that more than 90% of bitcoin users are male.
• The CoinDesk survey also found that 60% of bitcoin owners are under 35 years old, and 65.8% identify as white, followed closely by thosehttps://www.coindesk.com/new-coindesk-report-reveals-who-really-uses-bitcoin/ who identify as Asian.
• Of bitcoin users, most are 25 to 34 years old (45.71%), followed by those ages 35 to 44 (30.62%).
• The most popular currencies to change into bitcoin are the Japanese yen and the US dollar.
• A December 2017 finder.com.au survey found that 7% of Australians have invested in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, while a further 20% have considered it.

How popular is bitcoin?

• In the last three months of 2017, each day saw an average 321,775 confirmed bitcoin transactions.
• More than 665,000 Redditors subscribe to the r/Bitcoin community.
• In one day — on December 7, 2017 — there were 155.6K tweets about bitcoin. Even the lowest point, on January 8, 2018, saw 30.6K bitcoin tweets.

What about mining?

• Average bitcoin mining difficulty has increased more than sixfold in the last year, from 336.8999G on January 14, 2017, to 2.2278T on January 14, 2018.
• Bitcoin miners unlocked 142 blocks and 1,775 bitcoin on January 14, 2018.
• The bitcoin blockchain is 179.83GB as of January 16, 2018.

Fun facts

• The first real-world bitcoin transaction was a pizza purchase on May 22, 2010, from Papa John’s, for 10,000 BTC. The pizzas were valued at $25 at the time. Today, those pizzas would be worth nearly $140 million.
• Unlike other cryptocurrencies, the number of bitcoin is finite — exactly 21 million are available for mining, with 16.8 million already mined.
• It took five years for a single bitcoin to be worth $1,000. In contrast, from January 1, 2017, to the 2018 New Year, bitcoin’s value has increased from $800 to $14,000, hitting a high of $19,000 in December 2017.

For media inquiries:

Allan Givens
Public Relations Manager
203-818-2928
allan.givens@finder.com

Nicole Gallina
Communications Coordinator
347-677-4931
nicole.gallina@finder.com