Crypto adoption start date 2008-2022

The number of crypto users accelerated since 2017, with 20 percent of all crypto consumers buying their first digital assets in 2021. The survey held by cryptocurrency retailer CryptoRefills, a company that sells vouchers and gift cards, also suggests that less than one out of three surveyed crypto holders started investing before the first cryptocurrency boom in 2017. The source does mention specifically that the survey was during the second quarter of 2022 - so figures for 2022, it states, are "incomplete". It is likely the remaining parts of 2022 would severely impact this particular graphic, as the monthly number of global cryptocurrency users increased by nearly 100 million between January and November 2022. This, however, was not as big of an increase as in 2021.

Distribution of consumers worldwide who invest in cryptocurrency from 2008 to 2022, by starting year of their first ever investment

Characteristic	Consumers	Cumulative
2008	0%	0%
2009	1%	1%
2010	0.5%	1.6%
2011	1%	2.6%
2012	1.3%	3.9%
2013	2.6%	6.5%
2014	3.7%	10.2%
2015	5%	15.1%
2016	4.2%	19.3%
2017	11.5%	30.8%
2018	8.9%	39.7%
2019	13.1%	52.7%
2020	18.5%	71.3%
2021	20.4%	91.6%
Q2 2022 (YTD)	8.4%	100%

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Release date

November 2022

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

February to June 2022

Number of respondents

N = 15,960 unique individuals (of which 413 filled in all questions in the survey)

Age group

15 years and older

Special properties

registered users of CryptoRefills, see the "Details" tab for more information on the users

Method of interview

Online survey

Supplementary notes

The results are unlikely to have been weighted to represent the global population. This as the source adds the following information on the ratio of its respondents when compared to figures from the World Bank:

Europe & Central Asia: 24.8 percent (against 11.8 percent of the world);
South Asia: 20.9 percent (against 24.0 percent of the world);
Sub-Saharan Africa: 13.6 percent (against 14.9 percent of the world);
Middle East & North Africa: 13.1 percent (against 6.0 percent of the world);
East Asia & Pacific: 10.9 percent of the survey (against 30.2 percent of the world's population);
Latin America & Caribbean: 10.2 percent (against 8.4 percent of the world);
North America: 6.6 percent (against 4.7 percent of the world).

Consequently, the source adds it felt Europe & Central Asia was overrepresented whilst East Asia and Pacific was underrepresented. It cited "effective regulations, political embargoes, and access restrictions on many web services provided by the “West” in China, North Korea, etc." as possible reasons for this, but it also did not rule out a language barrier in the survey - as it was only held in English.

Furthermore, the source adds that the share of immigrants among its respondents - 17.2 percent - was higher than the 3.6 percent observed in the world population. It cites "the increasing immigrant population" as a main driver for Europe's overrepresentation.

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