Crypto Holder Growth Is Great—Now Let’s Build Web3 That People Actually Use

According to a Crypto.com report, the total number of crypto owners grew by 34% over 2023—rising from 432 million to 580 million.

The same data suggests that:

• Bitcoin holders increased by 33% year-over-year to 296 million—about 51% of all crypto owners.
• Ethereum reached 124 million holders, up 39%—around 21% of the total.

That’s impressive growth. But personally, I’m most excited about something else: the moment when people start entering crypto not only as investors trying to convert fiat into crypto and multiply it, but as users who get real, everyday value from the technology.

Most of today’s liquidity is still investor-driven

Right now, most liquidity in the market comes from holders waiting for profit and “x’s.” A huge share of the ecosystem is built around that demand:

• new blockchains designed to attract capital,
• DeFi products optimized for yield and speculation,
• infrastructure built primarily to support trading and investing,
• even many “gaming” projects that feel less like entertainment and more like investment vehicles.

This isn’t a moral judgment—it’s simply where we are in the cycle. Speculation is a powerful engine for bootstrapping an industry. But it’s not a destination.

What I really want: Web3 for people, not just portfolios

I’d love to see more Web3 products built for regular people—projects that use blockchain as a tool to improve quality of life, rather than primarily serving investor interests.

Yes, many funds invest in blockchain as a technology. Yes, new high-tech startups keep launching. But over time, a lot of these efforts end up becoming just another part of the speculation machine: trading, fiat-to-crypto ramps, fast cross-border transfers, and the surrounding infrastructure.

The good news: growth forces progress

There’s a positive side to all this. Rising liquidity means the industry can’t stay stuck in one place. As the market grows, more experiments happen—and among them, more genuinely useful projects get born. Step by step, we’ll get closer to true mainstream adoption, and eventually enterprise-grade use cases at scale.

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Curious: what year did you start using cryptocurrency?