How can number of bitcoin downloads change for same period over time?

[sipsaps]

I am a former journalist with Mint, a leading financial newspaper of India.

In one my articles for Mint, I had used data from Sourceforge site and mentioned in the article that there were 35,648 Bitcoin downloads in India since the launch of Bitcoins on 9 November 2008 to the date the article was published.

My co-author is currently working on a follow up article, but when I tried to find out total number of Bitcoin downloads in India so far since beginning it says 12,443. Should not this number be greater than 35,648? Grateful if you could help me understand this.

Thanks

Sunil

 
Relevant links:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.8.5/stats/map?dates=2008-11-09+to+2015-04-22

http://www.livemint.com/Industry/LI2IgSd3ugICUa7cxPvt3L/Bitcoins-gain-currency-in-India.html

[Slark]

I am little confused here, what is "Bitcoin Download"? Do you mean downloading Apps like Bitcoin Wallets to manage your coins? Certainly you are not talking about "having Bitcoins" right?
So my question is how can you download "Bitcoin"? Maybe someone will explain to me what Op really mean...

[sipsaps]

I  was referring to this- where countries are ranked as per per number of downloads.

I always thought 'Downloads' here mean number of Bitcoin downloads.


http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.8.5/stats/map?dates=2008-11-09+to+2015-04-22

[shorena]

-snip-
Grateful if you could help me understand this.
-snip-

There are other wallets besides bitcoin core? They download not from sourceforge but from bitcoin.org?

-> https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

I suspect the majority of new users do not use bitcoin core, but a light or online wallet. Mobile wallets are probably very common as well.

[Slark]

-snip-
Grateful if you could help me understand this.
-snip-

There are other wallets besides bitcoin core? They download not from sourceforge but from bitcoin.org?

-> https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

I suspect the majority of new users do not use bitcoin core, but a light or online wallet. Mobile wallets are probably very common as well.

That is correct. To Op, if you measured number of bitcoin applications by their number of downloads from SourceForge you did it wrong way. SourceForge is not the only place (and not certainly the most popular one) where you can download Bitcoin Wallet. Bitcoin.org probably is and you won't know how many peole dowloaded from there. So I am afraid your calculations abut number of downloaded wallets are totally wrong, Op.

[sipsaps]

Thanks for your reply. But that does not explain how can number of downloads change for the same period in Source Forge?

If I only want to look at number of downloads at SourceForge, which had said the total number of downloads for India was 35,648 in 2013. How can total number of downloads be  shown as 12,443 in 2015 in the same website SourceForge? What has changed?

[Slark]

Thanks for your reply. But that does not explain how can number of downloads change for the same period in Source Forge?

If I only want to look at number of downloads at SourceForge, which had said the total number of downloads for India was 35,648 in 2013. How can total number of downloads be  shown as 12,443 in 2015 in the same website SourceForge? What has changed?

You need to know that SourceForge is just one hosting provider and beside their services you can download the same app from many sources. It is easy to track download on SourceForge but this number is basically useless for determining popularity of certain apps. My guess is that people did not now about other sources of Bitcoin applications back then and now they are more aware of Bitcoin.org or other dedicated Bitcoin services.

[sipsaps]

Understood! That Sourceforge is not the only source to download Bitcoin, and Bitcoin.org is another such platform.
But that does not answer my question.

Since I have quoted the number from Sourceforge, I want to update the figure from the same place. I shall also mention and quote figures from Bitcoin.org this time.

But what is troubling me now is why is sourceforge showing a different set of data to me today? Is this an error?

<In one my articles for Mint, I had used data from Sourceforge site and mentioned in the article that there were 35,648 Bitcoin downloads in India since the launch of Bitcoins on 9 November 2008 to the date the article was published.

My co-author is currently working on a follow up article, but when I tried to find out total number of Bitcoin downloads in India so far since beginning it says 12,443. Should not this number be greater than 35,648? Grateful if you could help me understand this.>

[Elwar]

I suspect it is because you are pointing to the 0.8.5 version for the 12k number. You may need to add the statistics for each version to get the new total.

[Blazr]

Very few people download from the sourceforge repository, that is really old - the statistics might be broken. Most download from https://bitcoin.org however there are no statistics published IIRC. In addition there are many different Bitcoin clients published by different developers, so if you want to find out how many Bitcoin clients were downloaded in India, that would be very difficult.

[pawel7777]

Understood! That Sourceforge is not the only source to download Bitcoin, and Bitcoin.org is another such platform.
But that does not answer my question.

Since I have quoted the number from Sourceforge, I want to update the figure from the same place. I shall also mention and quote figures from Bitcoin.org this time.

But what is troubling me now is why is sourceforge showing a different set of data to me today? Is this an error?

<In one my articles for Mint, I had used data from Sourceforge site and mentioned in the article that there were 35,648 Bitcoin downloads in India since the launch of Bitcoins on 9 November 2008 to the date the article was published.

I am currently working on a follow up article, but when I tried to find out total number of Bitcoin downloads in India so far since beginning it says 12,443. Should not this number be greater than 35,648? Grateful if you could help me understand this.>

My guess is that first time you checked the total 'Bitcoin' downloads and later just 'bitcoin-0.8.5'. If you look again at total for all versions:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/stats/map?dates=2008-11-09%20to%202015-04-23

you'll see this:

17. India ... 52,658

[sipsaps]

Oh wow!  This helps! Thanks a lot.

[DannyHamilton]

- snip -
I had used data from Sourceforge site and mentioned in the article that there were 35,648 Bitcoin downloads in India
- snip -
[now] it says 12,443. Should not this number be greater than 35,648?
- snip -

Certainly you wouldn't think that users could "undownload" software.  Therefore, if you are looking at the same location for the data, you'd expect the number to be greater than or equal to the last time you looked.  Most likely you are looking at data for different versions of the software, but I suppose Sourceforge could have a bug.

(a bunch of nonesense because they replier didn't bother to understand what the OP said)

(a bunch of nonesense because they replier didn't bother to understand what the OP said)

(a bunch of nonesense because they replier didn't bother to understand what the OP said)

(a bunch of nonesense because they replier didn't bother to understand what the OP said)

(a bunch of nonesense because they replier didn't bother to understand what the OP said)

You would do well not to take advice from anybody that has an advertisement in their signature space on this forum.

The vast majority of those are people that are being paid per post to advertise with those signatures.  Therefore, they'll say just about anything in a discussion thread just to increase their post count (and therefore increase their income).  Generally, they know less about the topic they are discussing than the person asking the questions.

[ensurance982]

I suspect it is because you are pointing to the 0.8.5 version for the 12k number. You may need to add the statistics for each version to get the new total.

Yes, I also suspect that he is talking about the numbers of the current version. The older versions may have been downloaded a lot more already. I also advise him not to use download numbers as some sort of metric to gauge the interest in BTC, it makes far more sense to take the number of transactions for that.

[sipsaps]

Thank you all for helping me out here. Much appreciated!

[Kprawn]

I have read your previous article and it was quite accurate.    You have to take in consideration that the number of Bitcoin users in your region might be much bigger than the amount of wallet downloads you are quoting in your article.

People are using different types of wallets { Mobile / Desktop / Hardware / Web } and there are more than one source for these. See :   https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

A lot of people use a combination of these wallets, so you would have a situation where 1 person will have say 3 or 4 different types of wallets from different providers.

When you quote 1 provider of 1 type of wallet, you are not giving a true reflection of the scope of use for a specific region. I would suggest you drop some of these companies a email and ask them, if they would share some geographical distribution data with you.

I also have a signature in my posts, but I still feel, I have a voice and a opinion... and I can make a positive contribution. Hope this helps you. 

[minerpumpkin]

I can also advise you not to use those numbers as any sort of proof for the growth of Bitcoin. With an increased usage of light wallets over the last couple of years the number of people running a full node has gone down significantly. Also, you don't need to run a full node in order to mine some coins.

[DannyHamilton]

I still feel, I have a voice and a opinion... and I can make a positive contribution.

And yet you fail to understand the question that the OP is asking, and you fail to provide a useful answer.  Furthermore, you fail to notice that the question is already answered, and therefore doesn't need to be answered any longer.

And the reason that you feel it is necessary to post your opinion regardless of whether it applies to the topic being discussed?

I also have a signature in my posts

Oh yeah.  That's right.  Of course.