The University of Cambridge estimates that the number of global crypto asset users has increased by a whopping 189% since 2018.
In its new global crypto asset benchmarking study, the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF) identifies up to “101 million unique crypto asset users across 191 million accounts opened at service providers in Q3 [of] 2020.”
The CCAF says the sharp increase may be due to both an increase in the number of existing accounts as well as a heightened ability to connect individuals to those accounts.
Though staking in the crypto asset sector is primarily driven by retail investors, the CCAF’s report also finds that a growing number of European and American institutional investors wish to expose their portfolios to crypto assets.
According to the September report, BTC remains the most commonly available crypto asset across service providers. However, Ethereum has quickly grown in accessibility to become the second most supported token followed by Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ripple.
The CCAF hypothesizes that Ether’s swift rise in popularity is backed by the growing number of decentralized applications that are built upon Ethereum’s blockchain and by the increasing demand for ERC-20 tokens.
Stablecoins have also seen a significant increase in availability since the CCAF’s last report. The share of service providers that support Tether and non-Tether stablecoins from 2017 to 2020 jumped by 28% and 50% respectively.