Is there a way to determine the number of people who are actually using Bitcoin till date? Who would have access to such information? Meaning a way to find out, how many new people have used Bitcoin in 2016 , so that we can say exponential growth is natural not artificially created by hoarders.
I think there is no way to determine this. there is nothing that can determine the actual growth accurately but i bet you there is increasing growth of people because of rising price.
For me, you are correct fellow. I do not think we can exactly count the number of people using the bitcoin. The only thing evident is the increasing value, and thus we can say maybe the number of investors are increasing.