Author: Assad Jafri, Cryptoslate; Translated by: Wuzhu, Golden Finance
According to Crypto.com’s latest market size report, global cryptocurrency market holdings increased significantly in the first half of this year.
The number of holders increased by 6.4% from 580 million at the end of 2023 to 617 million in June. The growth was mainly driven by key developments in the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems, especially the launch of spot exchange-traded funds pegged to the two digital assets.
Bitcoin (BTC) remains the dominant cryptocurrency, with holdings growing 5.9% to 314 million by mid-year, representing 51% of all cryptocurrency holders.
Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) saw a significant increase in adoption, up 9.7%, bringing the total number of ETH holders to 136 million, or 22% of the global market.
Growth drivers
The report said two major events drove the rise in BTC adoption. The launch of the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF and the fourth Bitcoin halving in April played a key role.
The halving event, which reduced the block reward for miners from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, has enhanced Bitcoin’s appeal as “digital gold” and attracted a large number of institutional investors’ interest. The report estimates that between 388,000 and 1.6 million individuals have invested in BTC through U.S. spot ETFs, further boosting its adoption.
Much of Ethereum’s growth stems from March’s Dencun upgrade, which significantly reduced transaction fees on the Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network. The upgrade enhanced Ethereum’s scalability, resulting in a surge in L2 activity that now accounts for approximately 90% of all transactions on the Ethereum network, up from 77% before the upgrade.
Additionally, liquidity re-staking initiatives in the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem pushed DeFi’s total value locked (TVL) to $100 billion in Q1, almost 2x higher than the previous quarter.
Institutional adoption
The report highlights strong growth in March and April, with monthly gains of 1.7% and 1.6%, respectively, coinciding with the Bitcoin halving and Dencun upgrade. During this period, institutional investors played a key role in Bitcoin's continued growth, with U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs attracting more than $14 billion in inflows as of the end of June.
Ethereum also benefited from increased institutional interest, especially before the SEC dropped its investigation into ETH and the regulator approved a spot ETH ETF — both of which boosted investor confidence in Ethereum and the market as a whole. The initial surge in interest led to a rise in ETH prices to $3,900 in June.
Since their respective launches, spot ETFs have performed well, with Bitcoin-related funds setting multiple records in the ETF market.
However, despite significant market growth in the first half of the year, the market has struggled to break above all-time highs in recent weeks due to mounting macroeconomic pressures and worsening geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
At press time, BTC is trading at $59,121 and ETH is trading at $2,612 — both are down significantly from their highest prices this year.
