Only 5% Own Bitcoin: What If 10% of the World Wants It?

[Localhostspeed]

I don't think we have to think about this question.  If the demand for Bitcoin is doubled, it is very obvious that the value of Bitcoin will increase, as for the price, it depends on how desperate the additional 5% of the population is for Bitcoin.  It can double or quadrouple or even more.  But the obvious is that the government will take this opportunity to milk the Bitcoin economy by implementing regulations to profit from Bitcoin trades.

I think we also need to emphasize on where the demand is coming from. If demand is coming from other institutions and not from retailers, it will create a string buy and at the same time string hold. It's one thing to buy Bitcoin and it's another to hold and most institutions envisioned their investment for long term, they don't do like retailers that follow the crowd and sell when the market is another direction.

If you noticed Bitcoin of now and Bitcoin of before, there are more coins on centralized exchanges and among the few institutional investors than the total coins on the hands of retailers. It's a disadvantage on decentralization but good for dumping control. If institutions hold large Bitcoin and want more, the price of Bitcoin will be insane only that the day they intend to sell is not going to be funny.

[PrivacyG]

even if we take into account all the generated ETH, DOGE and LTC addresses that have been around for a long time and some popular alts that have been around for a few years, we are probably not even close to the number of 700 million users.

The number probably comes from this link,
https://statisticsfundamentals.com/blog/finance/cryptocurrency-statistics/

It claims there are over 700 million OWNERS, which is absolutely B S.  Is it even worth mentioning that they claim over 2 out of 10 Turkish adults own Cryptocurrencies and about 2 out of 10 American adults do?

For a good laugh, their lowest range of estimation is that 1 out of 10 women around the World own Cryptocurrencies.  That would be about 40 million women!

I think that such numbers are the product of a kind of advertising that comes from various services for cryptocurrencies, primarily CEXs, which may be trying to create a FOMO effect. Such articles have appeared frequently in the past, the OP has probably read something like that.

I had the same feeling.  But now I believe it is simply an 'AI' article posted on an 'AI' junk website.

[LUCKMCFLY]

What has always been most desired is adoption. I don't know if it's currently at 5%, but if with 5% it has already reached over $100k, imagine how much it could reach if it goes beyond that double that? This is something that could bring very positive momentum from everyone. Currently, the BTC market is fluctuating, above the $80k level, which isn't bad at all. Adoption will gradually arrive and take hold. It might take a while, but everyone is talking about BTC more now, and even the most negative news outlets are doing so, which already says a lot.

[knuckey]

It is estimated that more than 95% of the total potential supply of Bitcoin has already been mined, yet only 5% of the world's population holds Bitcoin worth at least $1.
A question for everyone: what will happen when 10% of the world's population shows an interest in acquiring it?

What is certain is that interest in adopting Bitcoin is increasing, and this increase in interest will always be followed by price movements. If Bitcoin adoption reaches 10% worldwide, it would not be surprising if Bitcoin could become legal tender in several countries, and its development would be much faster, and its appeal would begin to spread more rapidly than it does now.

[alani123]

I'd say 5% is still pretty optimistic and I would not trust the exchanges or serviced that are part of the industry with statistics.

If 5% is true it would be easy with any random sample to find this result because it's a significant enough amount for it to be spread around the general population.

That also means that 1/20 people own bitcoin. Do you believe out of the people you know 1/20 owns bitcoins? It would mean in each college class you should be able to find several people. Yet the most likely scenario is none.
.don't trust, verify. We're not they far yet.

[X-ray]

It is estimated that more than 95% of the total potential supply of Bitcoin has already been mined, yet only 5% of the world's population holds Bitcoin worth at least $1.
A question for everyone: what will happen when 10% of the world's population shows an interest in acquiring it?

Law of supply and demand take effect as usual and price could potentially go up.

Bitcoin is fractional, and what it means by fractional is you can divide 1 BTC to 100,000,000 satoshi, when demand is high and price rise there could be a unit shift from Bitcoin to satoshi.

When that happen we got quadrillion satoshis to distribute for the 10% world population to hold, easy. Even if 50% of world's population shows an interest, no problem.

[stompix]

~snip~
There are only 50,232,294 addresses with more than $1 worth of Bitcoin.
Even assuming one address per person, which is obviously false as most have at least two or three, that is 0.625% of the world population.

It just shows how much people actually care about anything decentralized, let alone decentralized currency.

Yeah, and all this becomes clear when you step outside the crypto forums and the crypto influence zone and you realize in the daily real life nobody relly cares that much about crypto.
I always tell people, step aside for 7 days from the forums and x and you will have the feeling Bitcoin is dead, this is why I always think those numbers of hundreds of millions of users are just pure bs.

I doubt we are more than 10-20 million owners, including of IOU Bitcoin notes on CEXs, and far more likely around a few millions of actual users, like people that actually use it now and then.

The number probably comes from this link,
https://statisticsfundamentals.com/blog/finance/cryptocurrency-statistics/
It claims there are over 700 million OWNERS, which is absolutely B S.  Is it even worth mentioning that they claim over 2 out of 10 Turkish adults own Cryptocurrencies and about 2 out of 10 American adults do?

You know what's funny?
When they claim those numbers, you have a base from which you then need to grow...
And if you start with 700 million and you need to hype a 30-50% grow ina  few years you will be left with no humans not owning crypto in the entire world.

[traderethereum]

It is estimated that more than 95% of the total potential supply of Bitcoin has already been mined, yet only 5% of the world's population holds Bitcoin worth at least $1.
A question for everyone: what will happen when 10% of the world's population shows an interest in acquiring it?

They will buy it on exchanges and that could makes the price increases because the demand will also increases. We as Bitcoin investors should happy because we could take our profit by selling Bitcoin.

That situation could trigger the price jump to the very high price. We already have seen $126k as the last ATH so just imagine how high the price will be.

[slaman29]

5% of the world population are holders? 400 million people hold Bitcoin? I'm not so good at maths but that absolutely doesn't make sense.

How does it not make sense? Too much people are holding bitcoin already or you think the percentage mentioned is wrong?

I can't believe 400m people own Bitcoin. Only if you count broker apps where there is no actual Bitcoin. 5% is 1 in 20. True in some countries, absolutely not in most.

Idk how accurate the 400M figure is, since I have not spent time looking into it. But I don't think you can use Bitcoin adoption in your own country to gauge the ownership rate worldwide. Demand for using and holding it is totally different from region to region.

Besides, you don't need to be particularly tech savvy to own Bitcoin.

I used my country as a country that has a high tech literacy and app use. I could be wrong but the number just didn't make sense. Googling it and yeah it seems conservative on ramp estimates say only 100m.

and I somewhere read that there are around 700 million people who are involved in crypto.

They must have smoked some thing really good to reach that conclusion.

Yeah, I figured ok if you count every single person who had a faucet, casino, Telegram wallet, Robinhood app, Paypal BTC OK then maybe maybe 400m but that means we're counting a lot of people who don't OWN Bitcoin. I think having BTC in an account is really not the same thing at all.

[goldkingcoiner]

It is estimated that more than 95% of the total potential supply of Bitcoin has already been mined, yet only 5% of the world's population holds Bitcoin worth at least $1.
A question for everyone: what will happen when 10% of the world's population shows an interest in acquiring it?

Easy logic, I would say.

We have a limited supply of something that people want, and it can be divided into smaller and smaller pieces. So what will happen when more people have a demand for it? Obviously the price for each piece will go up and this something will get more and more distributed and adopted (very important, even more so than the price).

Or am I missing something? I am not going to pretend to be an expert economist, but to me it looks like Bitcoin has a very important future ahead of it.

[BlackBoss_]

Easy logic, I would say.

We have a limited supply of something that people want, and it can be divided into smaller and smaller pieces. So what will happen when more people have a demand for it? Obviously the price for each piece will go up and this something will get more and more distributed and adopted (very important, even more so than the price).

Or am I missing something? I am not going to pretend to be an expert economist, but to me it looks like Bitcoin has a very important future ahead of it.

Bitcoin total supply can be changed, in theory it is possible but practically it is impossible because no Bitcoin holders want to see an increase in Bitcoin total supply. Such total supply increase won't help to raise value of each bitcoin they have, so that's is the reason Bitcoin holders are against this idea, even as said in theory, it's possible to do.

Can Bitcoin's hard cap of 21 million be changed?

[moneystery]

A question for everyone: what will happen when 10% of the world's population shows an interest in acquiring it?

The law of supply and demand dictates that when a product becomes scarce while demand remains high, its price tends to rise. Imagine if 10% of the world's population, or 800 million people, adopted Bitcoin. The price would rise significantly, so high that we might even see Bitcoin reach an all-time high of millions of dollars. But it will likely take a long time for Bitcoin to reach such widespread adoption.

[Felicity_Tide]

It is estimated that more than 95% of the total potential supply of Bitcoin has already been mined, yet only 5% of the world's population holds Bitcoin worth at least $1.
A question for everyone: what will happen when 10% of the world's population shows an interest in acquiring it?

5% of the current world population is a about 435M people owing at least $1 worth of Bitcoin if we're to go by what you've said. But like a few user had mentioned, a link to the source would have been best to enable a better discussion. Well, if it's true, which I'm not exactly sure of how impactful an actual 5% of word population ought to be, then I think a 10% would even be far better. When there's 2X the number of users, you should expect close to 2X the price performance we have at the moment because of an increase in demand while there's a decrease in supply. But again, an actual statistics would have given us a clearer picture of how impactful 10% of the world population would look like.

[Lucius]

Yeah, and all this becomes clear when you step outside the crypto forums and the crypto influence zone and you realize in the daily real life nobody relly cares that much about crypto.
I always tell people, step aside for 7 days from the forums and x and you will have the feeling Bitcoin is dead, this is why I always think those numbers of hundreds of millions of users are just pure bs.

I doubt we are more than 10-20 million owners, including of IOU Bitcoin notes on CEXs, and far more likely around a few millions of actual users, like people that actually use it now and then.
~snip~

I know what you are talking about, apart from this forum it is difficult (or almost impossible) to find someone with whom I can meaningfully talk about cryptocurrencies. Although honestly it's not a very smart thing for a long time, because they say if you talk about it, you probably have something valuable, and then it's just a question of when the bad guys will get that information.

[uneng]

That also means that 1/20 people own bitcoin. Do you believe out of the people you know 1/20 owns bitcoins? It would mean in each college class you should be able to find several people. Yet the most likely scenario is none.
.don't trust, verify. We're not they far yet.

I think I know only one person in real life who held/dealed with Bitcoin. And I'm into crypto industry since 2015. Not that I have a huge social network, but from daily interactions, I should have stumbled into a higher number of people who have been into Bitcoin, right?

And the most curious aspect of this is that doesn't matter how badly the economy is doing, people never get the interest to seek for alternatives like Bitcoin to avoid inflation, decreasing purchasing power and devaluation of fiat currency.

[Rabata]

It is estimated that more than 95% of the total potential supply of Bitcoin has already been mined, yet only 5% of the world's population holds Bitcoin worth at least $1.
A question for everyone: what will happen when 10% of the world's population shows an interest in acquiring it?

Bitcoin has already created a stir worldwide, its adoption has increased a lot in just a few years. Since the supply of Bitcoin is limited, the more people show interest in buying Bitcoin, the more Bitcoin will be sold, and if it is not sold, the price of Bitcoin will ultimately increase a lot. Although it is not possible to say for sure how much the demand for Bitcoin will increase, but based on reality, its price will definitely increase a lot. Only 95% of the 21 million Bitcoins have already been mined, so there are a small number of Bitcoins left. Moreover, the halving that will take place every four years will also reduce the reward for miners. The number of Bitcoin investors will definitely increase, but its supply will remain the same.

Moreover, while the number of individual investors in Bitcoin has increased in the past, institutional investors have now joined. The price of Bitcoin is gradually becoming more and more valuable as the number of institutional investors is constantly increasing. As a result, it can be said with certainty that if 10% of people start accepting Bitcoin, it will quickly become more expensive.

[d5000]

I remember a lot of discussion about that topic of Bitcoin ownership

And the skeptics are totally correct, there can't be more than 20-40 million "true" Bitcoin owners if there are only 40-50 million addresses with BTC on it. (Sidechains would make that possible, but they are not massively used. and you could also argue that the sidechainBTC are "not Bitcoin".)

But on the other hand, there are over 300 million Binance accounts and over 100 million Coinbase accounts according to their own reports. And there are also polls where e.g. about 15% of US citizens claim to own "cryptocurrencies". This may include stuff like memecoins and NFTs however, i.e. not much more than play money.

So my personal estimation is that there may have been, in total, 100-200 million Bitcoin users, but only a minority (20-40 million) of them owns them really and has an own private key. The rest either 1) has BTC on an exchange, but never owned it really on-chain (I'd say that could be 50-70 million at least), 2) owned BTC in the past, and 3) own some derivatives like ETFs, ETPs, sidechains, wrapped BTC etc. (a few million).


But now to the topic question which is independent from the question how many users exist now:

A duplication of Bitcoin demand of course has happened already several times. From all the estimations I've read, since 2020 such a duplication should have taken place. And in 2020 also a big percentage of BTC have been mined. But every day, some people sell their Bitcoins, or a part of them. They simply think the price is attractive, either because they're early adopters and can now buy a house with their profit, or because they panic and they think it may go lower. Or whatever. You can't buy Bitcoins without someone selling them (if you're not a miner).

So I'd say if the adoption duplicates again, I'd say the price would evolve like between 2020 and now. That means, it would increase between 3 (late 2020 to now) and 10 times (I think we can ignore the March 2020 dip). This is of course because Bitcoin has a low circulation rate, and many simply HODL. And thus the additional demand would push the price much more to the upside than if Bitcoins were sold more often.

[SOKO-DEKE]

It is estimated that more than 95% of the total potential supply of Bitcoin has already been mined, yet only 5% of the world's population holds Bitcoin worth at least $1.
A question for everyone: what will happen when 10% of the world's population shows an interest in acquiring it?

From 5% owning Bitcoin, based on your claim, if the percentage of people owning Bitcoin increases to 10%, the price of Bitcoin will be at a higher level than it is now, as there will be more Bitcoin adoption and demand will be higher. If demand is high, the price will definitely increase significantly, especially as Bitcoin has a maximum total supply of 21 million coins.However, I believe that Bitcoin adoption will continue to increase, and one day, it will even surpass 10% because more people are starting to understand the importance of Bitcoin. Even those who have been against it are beginning to believe in it.

[alastantiger]

It is estimated that more than 95% of the total potential supply of Bitcoin has already been mined, yet only 5% of the world's population holds Bitcoin worth at least $1.A question for everyone: what will happen when 10% of the world's population shows an interest in acquiring it?

Bitcoin is going to grow more than this is what is going to happen because Bitcoin is always going to continue to grow and when more people starts getting interested then it will make the price of Bitcoin to keep going up and also this will affect Bitcoin adoption and image in the public eye. People that had doubts will begin to believe in Bitcoin and it is going to create more global demand and affect the market very positively. Many people still do not know about Bitcoin yet and when they do, they are going to buy hence the price of Bitcoin is always going to be an investment that has a big potential of making you profits as a long term investment.