if you are looking at this chart:
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addressesit is showing number of unique addresses that are used per day not the total of them which is why it goes up and down instead of always going up. and that is because each day there is different number of transactions made by thousands of different people from different wallets. so some days there are a little more and some days are a little less new (unique) addresses used.
if you want the total, then you can click on the ALL Time and then export the CSV file and probably get the total from that file. here is the link:
https://api.blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=all&format=csvit seems the answer is 283,562,620 if I am not mistaken and blockchain.info can be trusted!
Did you just add the numbers?Isn't that creating duplicates?
Interesting thing is that it is pretty close to the number of total transactions stored in the chain, which is close to 298 000 000.
But back to the question the OP has, the number of addresses is not a good way of analyzing the number of users.
You have some info here:
https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.htmlThere are around 17 million addresses with a balance worth more than 1$.
But again that might be irrelevant as I have around 7 myself with more than that.
The only way I see to somehow get a picture would be the number of daily transactions.
To be a "user" it means to make transactions, pay per stuff, use the coins , not HODL.
And it doesn't matter if a tx in this case has 30 outputs. Because unless those 30 receivers spend the coins they are still considered holders.
But even this is pretty inaccurate.