Global cryptocurrency owners reached 741 million in 2025, up 12.4% from 659 million in 2024, according to the Crypto.com Market Sizing Report published in January 2026. The growth headline masks a sharper story underneath: only 30 to 60 million people use a mobile crypto wallet monthly, roughly 5 to 10% of the 617 million global crypto holders a16z tracked in late 2024.
Adoption is uneven across chains, regions, and household survey panels. Ethereum owners grew 22.6% in 2025 while Bitcoin owners grew 8.3%, driven by digital asset treasury strategies rather than retail trading. The Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index ranks India first, followed by the United States, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Brazil; stablecoin-driven flows from Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America are the highest-growth subset within those regional totals. Federal Reserve SHED data shows 7% of adults held or used cryptocurrency in 2023, down 5 percentage points from the 2021 peak.
Key Takeaways
- Global crypto owners crossed 741 million in 2025, a 12.4% annual increase, with Bitcoin accounting for 49.3% of all holders.
- Ethereum wallet adoption grew 22.6% in 2025, reaching 175 million owners, outpacing Bitcoin growth nearly three-to-one.
- The Asia-Pacific region processed $2.36 trillion in crypto transactions in the 12 months ending June 2025, up 69% year over year (the fastest regional growth).
- Vietnam leads global penetration at 31.0% of the population owning crypto, followed by the United Arab Emirates at 24.4%.
- The active-vs-owner gap is wide: 29 million monthly mobile wallet users hit an all-time high in June 2024, a small slice of total holders.
- MetaMask serves 100+ million users across mobile and browser extension, while Trust Wallet reports 200 million users and Phantom reports 20+ million users.
- US Federal Reserve household data shows crypto usage fell 5 percentage points from the 2021 peak to 7% in 2023 (the only major economy where survey-measured adoption is shrinking).
Editor’s Choice
- Global cryptocurrency owners: 741 million in 2025.
- Bitcoin owners worldwide: 365 million, representing 49.3% of global crypto holders.
- Ethereum owners worldwide: 175 million, or 23.6% of global crypto holders.
- US dollar fiat on-ramps to crypto: over $2.4 trillion in volume over the 12 months ending June 2025 (almost four times the next-highest country).
- Monthly blockchain-active addresses: 220 million in September 2024, more than tripled since the end of 2023.
- Cryptocurrency ownership compound annual growth rate: 99% between 2018 and 2023 (far exceeding the 8% annual growth of traditional payment methods).
- US adults holding or using cryptocurrency in 2023: 7%, down 3 percentage points from 2022.
Recent Developments
- January 2026: Crypto.com published the Market Sizing Report showing global cryptocurrency owners reached 741 million in 2025, rising from 659 million in 2024.
- September 2025: Chainalysis released its 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index ranking India first, followed by the United States, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Brazil.
- March 2025: US President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, positioning Bitcoin as a strategic asset (a primary catalyst Crypto.com cited for the year’s adoption surge).
- June 2025: USDT monthly stablecoin volume peaked at $1.01 trillion, the highest single-month figure on record per Chainalysis data.
- May 2024: Federal Reserve published the 2023 SHED report showing 7% of adults held or used cryptocurrency in 2023 (third consecutive annual decline).
Global Cryptocurrency Wallet Owners by Year
The Crypto.com Market Sizing Report tracks on-chain owner estimates across two flagship chains plus blended parameters to derive a single annual headline. The 2025 snapshot added net new owners over the prior year as global ownership climbed from 659 million in 2024 to 741 million in 2025.
- Global crypto owners: 741 million in 2025, up from 659 million in 2024.
- Year-over-year growth rate: 12.4%.
| Year | Global Crypto Owners | Year-Over-Year Growth |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 659 million | baseline |
| 2025 | 741 million | 12.4% |
Source: Crypto.com Market Sizing Report 2025, January 2026
This table is the citation anchor for downstream coverage. The on-chain methodology was unchanged from the prior reading. The estimate excludes approximately 300,000 to 1.2 million people who hold Bitcoin through US spot ETFs, so the true exposure number sits above the on-chain count.
Cryptocurrency Wallet Adoption Growth Rate by Year
Triple-A’s compound metric covers the early doubling years; the Crypto.com 2025 read covers the post-ETF phase.
By the numbers: Crypto.com’s January 2026 report shows Ethereum owners climbed from 142 million in 2024 to 175 million in 2025 (a 22.6% jump). The catalysts were digital asset treasury strategies and real-world asset tokenization, not retail speculation. That mix matters because treasury-driven holders sit on their wallets rather than trading them.
Cryptocurrency Wallet Adoption by Country
Country-level penetration tells a different story than absolute ownership counts. Vietnam leads the world in the share of population that owns crypto. The UAE and Singapore round out the top three, suggesting that sovereign-backed crypto-friendly regulatory frameworks correlate with retail adoption.
Vietnam’s leadership predates the 2025 Chainalysis index but aligns with it: Vietnam ranked fourth overall on the 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index and sixth on the population-adjusted ranking. Argentina’s 17.6% penetration reflects capital-controls-driven stablecoin demand, where dollar-pegged tokens substitute for hard currency access.
Cryptocurrency Wallet Adoption by Region
Regional flows show who actually moves money on-chain. Europe and APAC dominate by absolute volume; APAC, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa lead on growth-rate momentum.
- APAC led growth at 69% year-over-year on $2.36 trillion in 12-month transaction volume.
- Europe: $2.6 trillion, up 42%. North America: $2.2 trillion, up 49%.
- Latin America (+63%), Sub-Saharan Africa (+52%), and MENA (+33%) posted the fastest emerging-market growth.
| Region | Transaction Volume (12mo ending June 2025) | YoY Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Europe | $2.6 trillion | 42% growth |
| APAC | $2.36 trillion | 69% |
| North America | $2.2 trillion | 49% |
| Latin America | not disclosed | 63% |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | not disclosed | 52% |
| MENA | not disclosed | 33% |
Source: Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index
Key finding: Chainalysis data shows USD fiat on-ramps to crypto totaled over $2.4 trillion in volume during the 12 months ending June 2025, almost four times the next-highest country. The American dollar functions as the global crypto on-ramp even as US household crypto usage declines on the Fed’s survey panel.
This regional divergence has practical consequences. Crypto hedge funds cluster their custody operations in North America and Europe, while retail wallet growth concentrates in APAC, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The two trends produce the same headline number, 741 million, but rest on entirely different infrastructure.
Bitcoin vs Ethereum Wallet Ownership
Bitcoin anchors the wallet ecosystem with the largest single-chain user base. Ethereum is closing the gap faster than in any prior cycle.
The ETH growth rate ran roughly 2.7 times the BTC growth rate in 2025. The primary drivers Crypto.com cited were digital asset treasury (DAT) strategies and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, both institutional use cases rather than retail trading. This split changes what “wallet adoption” actually means: Bitcoin wallets belong to long-horizon holders or pass-through ETF custody addresses, while Ethereum wallets carry working capital for stablecoin transfers, on-chain treasuries, and tokenized commodity exposure.
Number of Active Cryptocurrency Wallets Worldwide
The gap between holders and active wallet users anchors the entire adoption story. a16z’s 2024 report quantified it.
- 220 million blockchain addresses interacted with a chain in September 2024, more than tripled since the end of 2023.
- 29 million monthly mobile wallet users hit an all-time high in June 2024.
- a16z estimates approximately 30 to 60 million monthly active crypto users worldwide.
- That active base represents only 5 to 10% of the approximately 617 million global crypto owners a16z tracked at the time.
- The United States accounts for approximately 12% of total mobile wallet users (the largest single-country share, though declining proportionally).
| Metric | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Total holders (a16z) | approximately 617 million | Late 2024 |
| Monthly active mobile users | 29 million | June 2024 |
| Monthly blockchain addresses | 220 million | September 2024 |
| Active-user share of holders | 5-10% | Late 2024 |
Source: a16z State of Crypto Report 2024
Why it matters: a16z’s analysis frames the active-vs-owner gap as a market opportunity rather than a flaw: the disparity reveals the large opportunity to engage and re-engage passive crypto holders as infrastructure improvements lower the friction. The headline owner count of 741 million gets quoted everywhere, but a working wallet ecosystem requires the underlying 30 to 60 million monthly actives to expand.
Self-Custody Wallet Market Share
Self-custody wallets are where the active-user count actually lives. Three platforms dominate by claimed cumulative user base, though the figures below reflect installed-base totals rather than monthly active users.
- Trust Wallet: 200 million cumulative users across 100+ blockchains.
- MetaMask: 100+ million users on Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains.
- Phantom: 20+ million users across Solana, Ethereum, and Bitcoin.
| Wallet | Users (cumulative) | Primary Chain Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Trust Wallet | 200 million | Multi-chain (100+ chains) |
| MetaMask | 100+ million | Ethereum + EVM chains |
| Phantom | 20+ million | Solana + Ethereum + Bitcoin |
Source: MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Phantom company pages, June 2026
Trust Wallet supports more than 10 million assets across 100+ blockchains, with access to over 600 million NFTs (the broadest chain coverage of any major self-custody wallet). Trust Wallet was founded in 2017, and its mobile app holds a 4.7 / 5 rating across 197,100 App Store reviews and a 4.6 / 5 rating across 2.5 million Google Play reviews.
Hardware wallets and DeFi-native options that fall outside the top three above are tracked in adjacent reports.
Crypto Wallet Adoption Demographics
Demographic skew has stayed remarkably stable across multiple research vintages. The Triple-A panel shows a 61% male-skewed, prime-working-age owner base (34% aged 25-34).
The payment-preference rate suggests the bottleneck for crypto-as-payment adoption is merchant acceptance and on-ramp friction, not consumer demand. Practical adoption channels include biometric authentication for wallet logins and QR code-based payments at point of sale, both of which lower the per-transaction friction that suppresses spend frequency.
US Cryptocurrency Wallet Usage
The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking surveys roughly 11,000 US adults annually, and the crypto trajectory has reversed since the 2021 peak.
- 7% of US adults held or used cryptocurrency in 2023 per the SHED 2023 report (published May 2024).
- That share is down 3 percentage points from 2022 and down 5 percentage points from the 2021 peak.
- Among the small share of US adults who used crypto to send money to friends or family, one-fourth indicated at least one transfer was made internationally.
| Year | US Adults Holding/Using Crypto | Source signal |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 12% (peak) | 2023 down 5 percentage points from 2021 |
| 2022 | 10% | 2023 down 3 percentage points from 2022 |
| 2023 | 7% | SHED 2023 reading |
Source: Federal Reserve Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED) 2023, May 2024
Worth noting: The SHED household survey gap contradicts the global on-chain trajectory. Global owners grew 12.4% in 2025 while US household-survey usage fell 3 percentage points between 2022 and 2023. Americans increasingly hold crypto via ETFs and custodial brokerage accounts rather than self-custody wallets, which SHED captures unevenly.
How Many People Use Cryptocurrency Wallets Worldwide?
Global cryptocurrency owners reached 741 million in 2025, up 12.4% from 659 million in 2024, according to Crypto.com’s January 2026 Market Sizing Report. The number reflects on-chain ownership estimates blended with parameter modeling; it excludes approximately 300,000 to 1.2 million people who hold Bitcoin through US spot ETFs. Active wallet usage is far narrower: a16z estimates approximately 30 to 60 million monthly active crypto users worldwide.
What Is the Crypto Wallet Adoption Rate by Country?
Vietnam leads the world in crypto ownership penetration at 31.0% of the population, followed by the United Arab Emirates at 24.4%, Singapore at 19.3%, Turkey at 18.9%, and Argentina at 17.6%, per Triple-A’s 2024 Global Crypto Ownership Report. On the Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, India ranks first overall, followed by the United States, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Brazil; the population-adjusted ranking puts Ukraine first.
How Fast Is Crypto Wallet Adoption Growing?
Crypto adoption growth has decelerated from the 2018-to-2023 boom but remains durable. Cryptocurrency ownership grew at a 99% compound annual growth rate from 2018 to 2023, far exceeding the 8% annual growth rate of traditional payment methods over the same period per Triple-A’s data. The most recent year-over-year reading is 12.4% between 2024 and 2025. Chain-level growth split: Ethereum owners grew 22.6%, and Bitcoin owners grew 8.3% in 2025.
Conclusion
The global cryptocurrency wallet base reached 741 million owners in 2025, up 12.4% year over year per Crypto.com’s January 2026 Market Sizing Report. Bitcoin still anchors the ecosystem with 365 million holders, while Ethereum’s 22.6% annual growth rate is closing the gap faster than any prior cycle. APAC posted the highest figure among the regions listed with 69% year-over-year transaction volume growth, while household-level US adoption tracked by the Federal Reserve moved in the opposite direction, falling to 7% of US adults in 2023, down 5 percentage points from the 2021 peak.
The single most consequential number in this data is the active-vs-owner gap. a16z’s research puts monthly active mobile wallet users at 29 million against approximately 617 million total holders, a 5-10% active rate. That ratio is the addressable market for wallet operators, on-ramp providers, and merchant acceptance networks over the next two years.
