Bitcoin's Big Challenge in 2016: Reaching 100 Million Users

[Premium Account Reseller]

"Like with VoIP, global adoption of bitcoin and blockchain technology will take time. But it’s already happening. It will be in the background, but just as ‘communications’ now is a part of many apps – from Facebook to call centres, so will transactions powered by blockchain be more and more prevalent.
Despite our lack of progress, we have something precious. Anecdotally, I can’t think of a single other back-end system that has been online for seven years without a glitch, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The bitcoin blockchain has proven its resilience. In fact, a quick review of some stats points to hardening and maturity across the network.
Over the past 12 months the hashrate of the bitcoin network has tripled, to over 650,000,000GH/s. User growth across core services has been impressive.
According to publicly available data, there are now over 10 million bitcoin wallets. Perhaps the most informative statistic of all is the transaction volume: the number of transactions has also grown impressively, from roughly 80,000 a day to more than 200,000 without showing any signs of slowing."

[tyz]

When the Bitcoin price rises in 2016 as most 'experts' has predicted, then there will be much more media and attention what will bring the necessary critical mass of 100 million users.

[suda123]

When the Bitcoin price rises in 2016 as most 'experts' has predicted, then there will be much more media and attention what will bring the necessary critical mass of 100 million users.

Yeap

[gentlemand]

I reckon this year may well be a good one. At the same time I can't see any compelling reason why user numbers would rise that rapidly. I think Bitcoin will continue to be a slow burn for the foreseeable future. It's a hard sell and still massively misunderstood by the majority.

[cellard]

When the Bitcoin price rises in 2016 as most 'experts' has predicted, then there will be much more media and attention what will bring the necessary critical mass of 100 million users.

It's actually interesting how fame works because the more known something gets the quicker it rises, so once the mainstream reports on Bitcoin all over the world this or 2017 as pushing it, we'll have Bitcoin everywhere and the price will follow.

[justspare]

I reckon this year may well be a good one. At the same time I can't see any compelling reason why user numbers would rise that rapidly. I think Bitcoin will continue to be a slow burn for the foreseeable future. It's a hard sell and still massively misunderstood by the majority.

I believe that the year of 2016 will be the turning point for Bitcoin. We should be seeing the price breach $1000. When the price goes up this high, we will see the number of users of Bitcoin rise extremely rapidly. Bitcoin will not be a slow burn though, if it was, it would slowly "go out". I don't see Bitcoin ever "going out". Bitcoin is relatively hard to sell, but as the demand for it increases, it will be easier to sell Bitcoin.

[~Bitcoin~]

When the Bitcoin price rises in 2016 as most 'experts' has predicted, then there will be much more media and attention what will bring the necessary critical mass of 100 million users.

If we are counting on number of bitcoin address created than bitcoin seems to already crossed that 100 million number but i don't think there will be any method to calculate the actual user base of bitcoin.

[Denker]

When the Bitcoin price rises in 2016 as most 'experts' has predicted, then there will be much more media and attention what will bring the necessary critical mass of 100 million users.

A rise in price and more media attention might bring us more users, I agree with that.But it won't be 10s of millions.I really can not see that at the moment.Furthermore the network isn't prepared for that. So as fast as this millions would join, as fast they would also leave when transactions stuck. We will need a bit more time to handle that amount of people.

[extrabyte]

"Like with VoIP, global adoption of bitcoin and blockchain technology will take time. But it’s already happening. It will be in the background, but just as ‘communications’ now is a part of many apps – from Facebook to call centres, so will transactions powered by blockchain be more and more prevalent.
Despite our lack of progress, we have something precious. Anecdotally, I can’t think of a single other back-end system that has been online for seven years without a glitch, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The bitcoin blockchain has proven its resilience. In fact, a quick review of some stats points to hardening and maturity across the network.
Over the past 12 months the hashrate of the bitcoin network has tripled, to over 650,000,000GH/s. User growth across core services has been impressive.
According to publicly available data, there are now over 10 million bitcoin wallets. Perhaps the most informative statistic of all is the transaction volume: the number of transactions has also grown impressively, from roughly 80,000 a day to more than 200,000 without showing any signs of slowing."

Only on coinbase there are more than 3 Millions users so it's not a small number especially for only 1 exchange. reaching 100 Million users is pretty hard because bitcoin is not know by most of the people in the world.

[Snorek]

Bitcoin reaching 100 millions users in 2016? I would say it is impossible and we won't be be able to reach that number even before 2020.
Considering how slow bitcoin adoption rate is now and we do not see any signs of groundbreaking progress -which mean it will be still rather painful process.

Number of bitcoin users is rather hard  to estimate. We can be sure of number of accounts of blockchain.info or coinbase - which is not always 1 account - 1 bitcoin user.
According to new research we have 6-8 millions of TOTAL bitcoin users. No way we could have 100 million in 2016.

[countryfree]

100 millions users?
How about reaching 10 millions users before?

The 10 millions wallets don't prove anything. I, for one, own 10 wallets, with accounts at 3 exchanges, and 3 wallets at blockchain.info. I've never seen anyone who only has one wallet.

[shogdite]

100 millions users?
How about reaching 10 millions users before?

The 10 millions wallets don't prove anything. I, for one, own 10 wallets, with accounts at 3 exchanges, and 3 wallets at blockchain.info. I've never seen anyone who only has one wallet.

Have to agree with you because you are right. There is not nowhere near 10 million users yet. I myself have 4 wallets with many many addresses. 2 blockchain.info wallets.

the number of transactions has also grown impressively, from roughly 80,000 a day to more than 200,000 without showing any signs of slowing."

if we get to 100 million users this year "which we won't" How do you expect over 250,000 transactions a day? It is not capable for that amount. So first things first lets be equipped to handle the required amount of transactions from that size userbase lol Then we can work on increasing  to 100 million users

[Amph]

impossible, we are still at 3M users, give or take, 33x increase in one single years it's not doable, it also mean that the price will pretty much skyrocket above 10k in value, which is another very far-stretched dream

[Raimonn]

100 millions of users is a very high amount, i saw reports that mix wallets and users, some users starts with a blockchain.info wallet, a mobile app wallet, and finally to store bigger accounts uses a cold wallet. When they say that now we have x users normaly used the number of wallets. The number of wallets increases fast (but users not too fast).

[iram66680]

100 millions of users is a very high amount, i saw reports that mix wallets and users, some users starts with a blockchain.info wallet, a mobile app wallet, and finally to store bigger accounts uses a cold wallet. When they say that now we have x users normaly used the number of wallets. The number of wallets increases fast (but users not too fast).

That is how I started and that formula of the wallets that follow are the same that I used as I found more and more advantages in using other wallets then I left those ones and transferred to another one.
There are a lot of options to choose from now, but I will stick to the ones that work for what I use them for and that allow me to change amount of fees that I want to pay for quickness to send that I need at that time.

[phreaky]

Before reaching out to 100 million users, there are still some problems/issues that can be handled.

Here are a few:

1) Ease of use: The problem is obvious , bitcoin is not for 60+aged people or 10 years kids.
2) Legality: There is still ambiguity of Bitcoin's legal status at most of countries
3) Tx capacity: avg. 7 tps is just enough for 100 millions' usage.

I dont think we will see 100 millions in near future, maybe 2020 or 2025 ofc after above handled

[Blind Legs Parker]

Who said that we needed to reach 60+ aged people and 10- aged kids? I mean, especially the kids. They barely know how to use paper money before 10 (ok they might have bought candies here and there since they were 6 but that's still less then 1 USD and I don't consider it "using money"). We need to reach more young adults first. Oh, and also, investors are the market we want, I think. Then as bitcoin becomes easier to use and its price more stable we can slowly begin to try and reach seniors and sellers. But really that's not a priority now. And forget about kids. They don't even know how to count past a hundred.

100M users sure is a challenge and I don't know if it's reachable in one year, but we have to make it, the quicker the better.

[morantis]

"Like with VoIP, global adoption of bitcoin and blockchain technology will take time. But it’s already happening. It will be in the background, but just as ‘communications’ now is a part of many apps – from Facebook to call centres, so will transactions powered by blockchain be more and more prevalent.
Despite our lack of progress, we have something precious. Anecdotally, I can’t think of a single other back-end system that has been online for seven years without a glitch, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The bitcoin blockchain has proven its resilience. In fact, a quick review of some stats points to hardening and maturity across the network.
Over the past 12 months the hashrate of the bitcoin network has tripled, to over 650,000,000GH/s. User growth across core services has been impressive.
According to publicly available data, there are now over 10 million bitcoin wallets. Perhaps the most informative statistic of all is the transaction volume: the number of transactions has also grown impressively, from roughly 80,000 a day to more than 200,000 without showing any signs of slowing."

Those wallets can also be multiple wallets for one person.  How could we ever get an accurate user count of "anonymous" users?

[steveds]

"Like with VoIP, global adoption of bitcoin and blockchain technology will take time. But it’s already happening. It will be in the background, but just as ‘communications’ now is a part of many apps – from Facebook to call centres, so will transactions powered by blockchain be more and more prevalent.
Despite our lack of progress, we have something precious. Anecdotally, I can’t think of a single other back-end system that has been online for seven years without a glitch, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The bitcoin blockchain has proven its resilience. In fact, a quick review of some stats points to hardening and maturity across the network.
Over the past 12 months the hashrate of the bitcoin network has tripled, to over 650,000,000GH/s. User growth across core services has been impressive.
According to publicly available data, there are now over 10 million bitcoin wallets. Perhaps the most informative statistic of all is the transaction volume: the number of transactions has also grown impressively, from roughly 80,000 a day to more than 200,000 without showing any signs of slowing."

Those wallets can also be multiple wallets for one person.  How could we ever get an accurate user count of "anonymous" users?

A rough estimation for real or unique users would be like 40-50% of the total number.however the exchanges already know the details or multi accounts but they won't make it public.
i would say if it goes to 20 million in this whole new year from 600k (what it is today) could be more than enough.

[morantis]

"Like with VoIP, global adoption of bitcoin and blockchain technology will take time. But it’s already happening. It will be in the background, but just as ‘communications’ now is a part of many apps – from Facebook to call centres, so will transactions powered by blockchain be more and more prevalent.
Despite our lack of progress, we have something precious. Anecdotally, I can’t think of a single other back-end system that has been online for seven years without a glitch, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The bitcoin blockchain has proven its resilience. In fact, a quick review of some stats points to hardening and maturity across the network.
Over the past 12 months the hashrate of the bitcoin network has tripled, to over 650,000,000GH/s. User growth across core services has been impressive.
According to publicly available data, there are now over 10 million bitcoin wallets. Perhaps the most informative statistic of all is the transaction volume: the number of transactions has also grown impressively, from roughly 80,000 a day to more than 200,000 without showing any signs of slowing."

Those wallets can also be multiple wallets for one person.  How could we ever get an accurate user count of "anonymous" users?

A rough estimation for real or unique users would be like 40-50% of the total number.however the exchanges already know the details or multi accounts but they won't make it public.
i would say if it goes to 20 million in this whole new year from 600k (what it is today) could be more than enough.

Also, think about how many brand new users set up an online wallet or download one and lose interest when they find out it is not a true get rich quick solution.