<blockquote>
<p><strong>Does anyone know where to find the size of the Bitcoin network?</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are lots of different ways to define what that means and few ways to measure them.</p>
<p>If, for example, you <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=number+of+bitcoin+nodes" rel="nofollow noreferrer">search for &quot;number of Bitcoin nodes&quot;</a> you might be led to several websites such as <a href="https://bitnodes.io/dashboard/7y/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://bitnodes.io/dashboard/7y/</a> and others that claim to show the number of reachable nodes in the last 24 hours.</p>
<p>I guess these are discovered using the Bitcoin Network Protocol's <code>addr</code> messages and attempt to count the number of Bitcoin nodes that respond on port 8333. Of course they may miss nodes that are temporarily offline. They might double count nodes that have multiple network addresses or which change address frequently. There must be many Bitcoin participants that might not show up, such as: Nodes configured to not accept inbound connections but which still initiate connections themselves; SPV clients or clients that are only active for a short while. I imagine such counts tell us nothing about the number of people who create transactions or who receive on-chain payments through a custodial account with one of the many commercial services.</p>
<hr />
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Is the user adoption still growing</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>These numbers tell us nothing about the number of people or organisations that have &quot;adopted&quot; Bitcoin as a currency - some may treat it as a payment network for fiat currencies. Some proportion will just treat it as an investment, we probably wouldn't say that someone who buys shares in Apple has &quot;adopted&quot; Apple.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-10-19T21:37:51.177Z
2022-10-19T21:42:55.183Z
2022-10-19T21:42:55.183Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>Does anyone know where to find the size of the Bitcoin network?  Is the user adoption still growing even as the price in USD continues to drop?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-10-19T15:27:49.510Z
What is "size"? Number of people who hold BTC? The number of people with a non-custodial wallet? The number of wallets? The number of nodes? The number of full nodes? The number of businesses? The amount of BTC transacted?
Pieter Wuille
<bitcoin-core>
Size of the Bitcoin network
user14984433
# Size of the Bitcoin network

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-10-19)

Does anyone know where to find the size of the Bitcoin network? Is the user adoption still growing even as the price in USD continues to drop?

**Tags:** bitcoin-core

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: What is "size"? Number of people who hold BTC? The number of people with a non-custodial wallet? The number of wallets? The number of nodes? The number of full nodes? The number of businesses? The amount of BTC transacted?  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2022-10-19. Score: 1

> **Does anyone know where to find the size of the Bitcoin network?**

There are lots of different ways to define what that means and few ways to measure them.

If, for example, you [search for "number of Bitcoin nodes"](https://www.google.com/search?q=number+of+bitcoin+nodes) you might be led to several websites such as <https://bitnodes.io/dashboard/7y/> and others that claim to show the number of reachable nodes in the last 24 hours.

I guess these are discovered using the Bitcoin Network Protocol's `addr` messages and attempt to count the number of Bitcoin nodes that respond on port 8333. Of course they may miss nodes that are temporarily offline. They might double count nodes that have multiple network addresses or which change address frequently. There must be many Bitcoin participants that might not show up, such as: Nodes configured to not accept inbound connections but which still initiate connections themselves; SPV clients or clients that are only active for a short while. I imagine such counts tell us nothing about the number of people who create transactions or who receive on-chain payments through a custodial account with one of the many commercial services.

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> **Is the user adoption still growing**

These numbers tell us nothing about the number of people or organisations that have "adopted" Bitcoin as a currency - some may treat it as a payment network for fiat currencies. Some proportion will just treat it as an investment, we probably wouldn't say that someone who buys shares in Apple has "adopted" Apple.


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