- My gut feeling is that number of bitcoin holders was estimated a little too small last time - an analysis of Bitcoin client and wallet software userbases, (Rassah! 
) plus Coinbase users, Bittiraha.fi users and Localbitcoins activity, and new user count in exchanges, is what we need to find more reliable figures.
) plus Coinbase users, Bittiraha.fi users and Localbitcoins activity, and new user count in exchanges, is what we need to find more reliable figures.In Japan, 週刊新潮 (Shukan Shincho, a weekly news magazine/tabloid) published a section on Bitcoin this week featuring an interview with a MtGox rep. The rep said that they have 720,000 users, of which 400,000 are active/frequent, and that 20% of their users are Chinese, up from 4% in April.
OK. I think for Mt.Gox, the "active" number 400,000 is what we should use. The total number possibly includes also accounts that have not been funded + the ones that have been emptied (and abandoned). The ratio of "active":"total" is about the same as in Silvervault.
Then we know that Localbitcoins has 120,000 accounts, with a growth rate of 2.5% per day. If you just buy from any of the merchants, you do not need to register afaik, so the total number of users could be larger. On the other hand, LB has quite many accounts with zero trades, since it has grown so rapidly. Perhaps 80,000 users would be a good estimate.
Coinbase has 488,000 customer wallets. The number is probably "total", in which case about 300,000 would have a balance.
BTC China has to have quite many accounts, but I did not find the information publicly. Help!
Bitstamp ditto!
Number of Bitcoin clients downloaded is 4,350,000 over 5 years. How many of these is in use?
MyWallets (blockchain.info wallet) walletcount is 690,000.
Bitcoin network has used 11,462,000 addresses, of which 600,000 (exact) have non-dust (>1mBTC) balance.
Then there are other exchanges and wallet services, which you can add if you find nice figures.
In my understanding, the Bitcoin ledger (address usage and balance distribution), currently sets the upper limit for bitcoin number of users. Especially considering that 1mBTC only 2 months ago was only $0.13 or so, most of these accounts are not the sole acconts of bitcoin holders. On the other hand, most of the larger accounts
We need to evaluate, how many users should be added who only use exchanges for storing their bitcoins. This increases the total number.
On the other hand, there is a huge overlap in the numbers, since I alone have 8 accounts in the abovementioned sites only + several addresses with balance in the ledger.
Now, please try to keep this on-topic so that we get the december figures out.
