Infographic: we are close to 1 billion users by the end of 2022

The adoption of cryptocurrencies is at an exponential rate. As the market gets more mature, more and more users are jumping onto the train and increasing the global rate of ownership of cryptocurrencies.

The latest report fromCrypto.com states that we are close to 1 billion users of cryptocurrencies by the end of 2022.

Adoption grows despite the onset of a bear market.

The growing push towards cryptocurrencies has been increasing over the past few years. This year we saw massive institutional efforts as well, despite the fact that the retail market has always been the driving force behind this adoption.

El Salvadoran's groundbreaking Bitcoins law was a cherry on top of an entire year of companies and financial institutions jumping aboard the criptocurrency train.

There is a significant increase in the number of users of cryptocurrencies because of all of this. There were 295 million users of cryptocurrencies worldwide as of December 29th, 2021, according to data from the Data fromCrypto.com. It is still a good representation of the market, because this number is just an aggregate of all users cross-checked for double addresses across two dozen centralized exchanges.

The number of users of cryptocurrencies has nearly tripled last year, from 106 million in January to 295 million in December. By the end of the year, if we see the same increase in 2022, we are on track to reach 1 billion users.

The increase in the number of users of cryptocurrencies will have a significant impact on the market. By the year 2022, around 176 million global users ofBitcoin are now using it, or less than 60%, as of the year 2022. Only 23 million people own ether, but 23% of the entire user base owns bothBitcoin andEthereum.

The biggest month-on-month growth of users of cryptocurrencies was seen in August of last year when the number of users increased by 15.2% compared to the previous month. This increase in the number of users was partly responsible for Bitcoins'stellar performance in the following months, peaking in November when it reached its ATH of $69,000.

The 15.2% growth rate we saw in August was hard to replicate in the following months - MoM growth rates in September and October 2021 were just 1.1% and 2.1%, respectively.

However, in terms of market value and number of users,Bitcoin continued to capture the largest part of the market. In July 2021, just over 56% of all users of the digital currency ownedBitcoin. This market share continued to grow until October when it reached 63%. After it began its two-month long drawdown and touched its ATH, its market share decreased to 60%.

It also decreased at the beginning of November 2021, falling below 40% at the end of the year when it comes to the market capitalization ofBitcoin. If this downtrend continued in 2022, we could see its dominance drop to historical lows.

It won't affect the number of people owningBitcoin. If the rate of ownership was to stay around its current 60% level, it would mean that 600 million people would ownBitcoin.

The data is interesting, and breaking down the data even further reveals an interesting phenomenon. The number of users of ether increased by only 1.4% during this period.

The number of users of ether continued to be steady at around 23 million during the second half of the year. The number of users of ether grew by 64% in the first half of 2021. In January, the market share of ether decreased from 13% to 8% in December 2021, resulting in a loss of its market share.

In its report, Crypto.com noted that this may be due to the fact that various EVM-compatibleblockchains and Layer 2 solutions drew away users and assets fromEthereum.

There is a possibility that there isn't adoption of ether in the report.

The research methodology used by Crypto.com only considered centralized exchanges, so it could overlook the vast DeFi market and potentially tens of millions of DEX users. There is the issue of cost that could have driven more people toBitcoin. Transaction fees have gone up this past year because of the difficulty of high gas costs. With the cost of a swap on a decentralized exchange often reaching hundreds of dollars, gas prices might have putEthereum out of reach for many small-time retail investors who are new tocryptocurrencies.

The complexity of the Ethereum ecosystem could have been a factor in its lack of adoption. Out of the entire market,Bitcoin is the only coin that looks and behaves in a similar way to traditional financial assets. It is a good gateway to the world of cryptocurrencies for many new users.