Nearly 25,000 new Bitcoin (BTC) addresses were created today in just one hour—a level that was last seen in January 2018.

According to Glassnode’s data, the 24-hour moving average of new Bitcoin addresses hit 24,807. This shows that, on average, that many addresses were created on the blockchain for each of the last 24 hours. For some of the hours, it would have been even higher.

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Number of Bitcoin addresses
The moving average rose higher than usual today. Image: Glassnode.

The last time a comparable number of newly created wallets appeared on the network within the same time frame was in mid-January 2018. This was just after Bitcoin reached its all-time high of $20,000 the previous month.

At the same time, the amount of new addresses does not directly translate into the number of new users, since any crypto enthusiast can create thousands or millions of Bitcoin addresses. In fact, it’s usually recommended to use multiple addresses for privacy and security reasons.

According to Glassnode, there are now a total of 32.5 million Bitcoin addresses with a non-zero balance. This has been continually rising since March 2018 after a sharp drop in January 2018.

Generally, as the number of Bitcoin addresses and its price continues to rise, this shows that the network is growing and there are (likely) more users.

The total number of Bitcoin addresses with a non-zero balance
The total number of Bitcoin addresses with a non-zero balance. Image: Glassnode

A closer estimate of the number of users can be seen by the number of active addresses. This number is around 850,000 addresses. It has been on the rise since late 2019 but is still lower than at Bitcoin’s peak in 2017.

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And as many commentators have pointed out, Google search trends haven’t yet picked up for the search term “Bitcoin.” This suggests that, if another big wave of new interest is coming, it isn’t at full force yet.

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