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In July only, more than 3.5 million crypto wallets have been downloaded according to a thorough report by Madeline Lenahan of Apptoppia. This number is a historical record which shows growing recent interest from the general public towards cryptocurrency.
This amounts to an 81% increase compared to July of last year and the number of active users of wallets has risen by 110% between the beginning of the year and August 19th. The author argues that while July has been the best month on record, there is strong evidence that August will beat it.
Interestingly enough, the start of the impressive growth in wallets downloaded started as most countries imposed lockdown measures in the wake of Covid-19. Lenahan argues that the recent trend in the last 5 months was unexpected and its persistence is a good sign of adoption of cryptocurrency in the general public.
The developing world in the driver seat
Lenahan argues that Africa has been the biggest driver of this impressive increase. Sites such as crypto.com are very popular in Africa as shown by a 339% increase in installations in Nigeria in the last three months. One of the most used exchanges Binance has seen a 113% increase as well.
The report also notes that between August 10th and 16th, Nigeria surpassed the US and India in amount of crypto wallets downloaded to form the top 3 countries. Nigeria is solidifying their position as the de facto capital of crypto in Africa and perhaps the one of the future biggest markets in the world.
Lenahan argues that the growth seems very real and that this trend is not likely to go down. Mobile apps allow many more users to participate in crypto and August should likely beat July and set the next record.
The most used wallets are Coinbase, Blockchain Wallet, Crypto.com, BRD, Trust, Luno, Binance, Bitcoin Wallet and Coinbase Wallet. On August 20, both Coinbase and Crypto.com have acheived their highest number of daily active users ever at 969k and 576k respectively.
The pandemic has had a very beneficial effect on cryptocurrency as a whole as it both allowed people to stay at home and consider new options but mostly as it has destabilized the modern economy and inflation threatens most fiats. This has allowed many individuals to consider cryptocurrency as a realistic possibility and this is shown in the recent increase in wallet apps downloaded.
Several newer apps are also carving out a market (ZenGo, TronWallet, YellowCard, Paxful, Zebpay) which have all seen between 20 and 100 fold increases. The recent increase in wallet downloads could secure strong footing for these new players in a booming market.