<p>As Luca mentioned it is really difficult to measure, but there is a way to <strong>map Bitcoin addresses to IP address</strong> under certain conditions.
Refer this paper</p>

<p><strong>Title :</strong> <em>An Analysis of Anonymity in Bitcoin using P2P Network Traffic.</em> </p>

<p><strong>Authors :</strong> Philip Koshy, Diana Koshy, and Patrick McDaniel.</p>

<p><em>Note: It analyses relay pattern of transactions. It cannot analyse transactions that are already confirmed in blocks.</em> </p>

<p>Some companies publicly disclose their data and it might be possible to come up with a ballpark estimate.  Blockchain.info shares <a href="https://blockchain.info/charts/my-wallet-n-users" rel="nofollow">the number of wallets used</a> in their My Wallet service.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-16T13:44:38.470Z
2015-05-16T19:00:09.150Z
2015-05-16T19:00:09.150Z
somesh
<p>It is next to impossible to estimate. </p>

<p>Consider this scenario:
You live in a deserted place with just phones/post offices. Using just pen &amp; paper/calculator you derive a fresh new bitcoin address and its private key. You call any of your friends, who could be anywhere in the world, who have internet and you give them this address. They make a transaction sending satoshis worth buying milk and relay it to the network. </p>

<p>You could then go give away your privatekey to a milkman for buying milk. If he doubts you he can call any of his friends in the world who have internet and can confirm that that address holds balance.</p>

<p>You and the milkman are untraceable unless your friends decide to give you up. No technology can do it. Well, maybe some neuro-tech can scan their brains but ..</p>

<p>I could travel across borders holding my money in my mind.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-21T03:25:31.990Z
Note that the milkman (or his friends) must transact the funds to a new address otherwise you, or someone else you might have given the private key to, can do it instead. This makes the milkman somewhat traceable (or his friends, at least).
Highly Irregular
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-16T14:13:04.357Z
2015-05-16T14:13:04.357Z
Kang
<p>As of Today, <strong>BlockChain's</strong> MyWallet has about <strong>3.75M</strong> users. Adding this with <strong>CoinBase's</strong> user base of <strong>2M</strong> and <strong>Multibit's</strong> <strong>1.5M</strong>. That makes about <strong>7.25M</strong> Bitcoin users. Note that actual number of users may be much above this figure as you can figure out all that is needed to encrypt the data is <em>just a <strong>key</em></strong>!</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/7XE0G.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-17T11:33:35.307Z
Notice that there might be considerable overlap among these sets of users, which might put the actual number of users quite a bit lower.
cdecker
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-17T11:35:20.033Z
Exactly! Nothing can be exactly measured.
Sharad Gautam
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-17T02:32:34.040Z
2015-05-17T02:32:34.040Z
Sharad Gautam
<p>Is there an estimate on how many people in total own some cryptocurrencies? </p>

<p>How is this distributed among bitcoin and altcoins?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-16T10:08:33.500Z
nobody knows really and it would be really hard to measure because an individual can have multiple bitcoin addresses.
Luca Matteis
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-16T10:46:26.290Z
@LucaMatteis true, I was wondering if there is another way apart from analyzing the addresses?
Doug Peters
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-16T16:01:24.010Z
There _must_ be a way to estimate this.  There is so much data on # of transactions, # of wallets, # of hashes per second (miners could possibly indicate popularity or adoption), publicly disclosed data from Bitcoin companies and online sales.  Do some crazy math, average, and combined with real time monitoring like mapping bitcoin addresses to IP addresses (thanks somesh), I bet you could get a good estimate.
Scott
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-16T16:30:45.367Z
Very similar to http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/731/how-can-you-tell-how-many-users-bitcoin-has
Nick ODell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-18T09:51:09.143Z
I've removed the tag [tag:estimate], as it described the type of question instead of the topic of the question.
Murch
<adoption><user-base>
How many people own crypto currencies?
Doug Peters
# How many people own crypto currencies?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-05-16)

Is there an estimate on how many people in total own some cryptocurrencies?

How is this distributed among bitcoin and altcoins?

**Tags:** adoption, user-base

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: nobody knows really and it would be really hard to measure because an individual can have multiple bitcoin addresses.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 true, I was wondering if there is another way apart from analyzing the addresses?  
> **username_2**: There _must_ be a way to estimate this.  There is so much data on # of transactions, # of wallets, # of hashes per second (miners could possibly indicate popularity or adoption), publicly disclosed data from Bitcoin companies and online sales.  Do some crazy math, average, and combined with real time monitoring like mapping bitcoin addresses to IP addresses (thanks username_5), I bet you could get a good estimate.  
> **username_3**: Very similar to http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/731/how-can-you-tell-how-many-users-bitcoin-has  
> **username_4**: I've removed the tag [tag:estimate], as it described the type of question instead of the topic of the question.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2015-05-16. Score: 3

As username_1 mentioned it is really difficult to measure, but there is a way to **map Bitcoin addresses to IP address** under certain conditions.
Refer this paper

**Title :** *An Analysis of Anonymity in Bitcoin using P2P Network Traffic.*

**Authors :** Philip Koshy, Diana Koshy, and Patrick McDaniel.

*Note: It analyses relay pattern of transactions. It cannot analyse transactions that are already confirmed in blocks.*

Some companies publicly disclose their data and it might be possible to come up with a ballpark estimate. Blockchain.info shares [the number of wallets used](https://blockchain.info/charts/my-wallet-n-users) in their My Wallet service.


---

### Answer by username_6 on 2015-05-16. Score: 1

It is next to impossible to estimate.

Consider this scenario:
You live in a deserted place with just phones/post offices. Using just pen & paper/calculator you derive a fresh new bitcoin address and its private key. You call any of your friends, who could be anywhere in the world, who have internet and you give them this address. They make a transaction sending satoshis worth buying milk and relay it to the network.

You could then go give away your privatekey to a milkman for buying milk. If he doubts you he can call any of his friends in the world who have internet and can confirm that that address holds balance.

You and the milkman are untraceable unless your friends decide to give you up. No technology can do it. Well, maybe some neuro-tech can scan their brains but ..

I could travel across borders holding my money in my mind.

> **Comments:**
> **username_7**: Note that the milkman (or his friends) must transact the funds to a new address otherwise you, or someone else you might have given the private key to, can do it instead. This makes the milkman somewhat traceable (or his friends, at least).  

---

### Answer by username_8 on 2015-05-17. Score: 1

As of Today, **BlockChain's** MyWallet has about **3.75M** users. Adding this with **CoinBase's** user base of **2M** and **Multibit's** **1.5M**. That makes about **7.25M** Bitcoin users. Note that actual number of users may be much above this figure as you can figure out all that is needed to encrypt the data is *just a **key***!

![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/7XE0G.png)

> **Comments:**
> **username_9**: Notice that there might be considerable overlap among these sets of users, which might put the actual number of users quite a bit lower.  
> **username_8**: Exactly! Nothing can be exactly measured.  

---

