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Title: Counting Bitcoin Holders Post by: Rob Lister on July 18, 2011, 12:15:42 PM I'm looking for a estimate as to the total number of people holding BTC.
Actually, I'm looking for the means by which such a number can be estimated. I was going to put some qualifiers on 'holding BTC' but any definition might limit otherwise useful answers. Therefore, a useful answer must define a holder to some degree. Any ideas? Title: Re: Counting Bitcoin Holders Post by: spruce on July 18, 2011, 12:17:54 PM Does the bitcoin software show a count of how many computers are online and running it at any one time?
Title: Re: Counting Bitcoin Holders Post by: Rob Lister on July 18, 2011, 12:25:38 PM Does the bitcoin software show a count of how many computers are online and running it at any one time? Any way to expand on that? For example, I don't run my BTC client all the time. Still, that would be a useful metric in itself. Title: Re: Counting Bitcoin Holders Post by: froggy on July 18, 2011, 12:44:38 PM It doesn't quite answer your question but some interesting statistics from http://bitcoinwatch.com/ which you may want to base some assumptions/guesses around:
Quote Total BTC 6,843,950 BTC Market Cap based on latest prices 89,795,362 USD Transactions last 24h 7,978 Transactions avg. per hour 332.42 Title: Re: Counting Bitcoin Holders Post by: Rob Lister on July 18, 2011, 12:57:32 PM It doesn't quite answer your question but some interesting statistics from http://bitcoinwatch.com/ which you may want to base some assumptions/guesses around: Quote Total BTC 6,843,950 BTC Market Cap based on latest prices 89,795,362 USD Transactions last 24h 7,978 Transactions avg. per hour 332.42 That is an excellent start. What does that transaction count represent? Say Bob buys a widget from Alice for 1.76BTC. How many transactions take place (sorry if that seems is a dumb question). Is there any way to establish the average transaction amount? Title: Re: Counting Bitcoin Holders Post by: crazy-pilot on July 18, 2011, 01:40:41 PM Anyway, we might have up to 60% calculating error... One person may have several wallets (and thousands of addresses inside 'em), there are lot of "technical" wallets for different services. It's all about crystal gazing.
Title: Re: Counting Bitcoin Holders Post by: spruce on July 18, 2011, 03:03:24 PM Does the bitcoin software show a count of how many computers are online and running it at any one time? Any way to expand on that? For example, I don't run my BTC client all the time. Still, that would be a useful metric in itself. If that information is available, at least you could say something like "Right now there are 14,761 active wallets and 28 days ago at the same time of day there were 12,134" or whatever. It would be similar to Skype saying "27,010,209 people online," which is what it says right now. Title: Re: Counting Bitcoin Holders Post by: Mageant on July 18, 2011, 04:03:40 PM We know that there are about 100,000 Mt. Gox accounts. If you assume (I'm just blindly guessing) that only every third Bitcoin owner also has an Mt. Gox account that would be 300,000 Bitcoin owners. Perhaps you could do a poll asking how many people do or do not have a Mt. Gox account, that would give you a better estimate.
Title: Re: Counting Bitcoin Holders Post by: error on July 18, 2011, 05:23:49 PM That is an excellent start. What does that transaction count represent? Say Bob buys a widget from Alice for 1.76BTC. How many transactions take place (sorry if that seems is a dumb question). That's one transaction. |