By Brian Cohen The number of user profiles that mention "Bitcoin" in the
popular professional social networking site LinkedIn exceeded 2,000 on September
19th.
I have been maintaining a daily (in theory) count over at the
Bitcoin Bitskill Index at Bitcoin Hired. Although I have only been
compiling data since May 30th, when there was a user count of 1,108, it is
reasonable to assume/project that the number of profiles that contained bitcoin
first exceeded 1,000 sometime during May. LinkedIn also has a networking groups
for Bitcoin. The most popular group "Bitcoin P2P Digital Currency" has
2,186 members. It's interesting to note that this number is slightly larger than
the number of users who actively mentioned Bitcoin in their main LinkedIn
profile. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin Foundation has 244 Lifetime
Individual Members and 411 Annual Individual Members for a total
of 655 members. Assuming nearly all Bitcoin Foundation Members
have a LinkedIn profiles (I haven't verified this) and assuming LinkedIn
represents a majority of Bitcoin professionals (as opposed to say
enthusiasts and novices) then we can say that about 1/3rd (655/2,000) of all
Bitcoin professionals are members of the Bitcoin Foundation. However, I don't
think Bitcoin Miners are reflected in the pool of "Bitcoin
Professionals" since there are only around 100 profiles that mention
bitcoin mining. Without doing an actual survey I would gather that
those who actually make mining hardware and software (as opposed to end
users who are "simply" mining for bitcoin) or those who are
administrators of mining pools would be more inclined to include "bitcoin
mining" in a LinkedIn Profile. This is not to diminish miners who have a
valuable skill-set. Another recent milestone was on September 10th when the
number of Bitcoin subreddit readers exceeded 50,000. There
are currently more than 50,400 readers/subscribers. A current search of
popular subreddits shows (notice the number "175" in the URL) that
bitcoin is the 178th most popular subreddit (not restricted to
subscriber count). According to Stattit, as of May (I think) bitcoin was
the 321st most popular subreddit based on subscriber count (46,070). Assuming
(?) the last Stattit count is indeed from May then the bitcoin subreddit has
increased by about 4,330 subscribers or about 9% in the same timeframe that the
number of Bitcoin professional has doubled. Assuming (...no trolls please...)
all LinkedIn Bitcoin Professionals are also members of the
bitcoin subreddit and a majority of Bitcoin users are
members of the bitcoin subreddit then only about 4% of Bitcoin
users consider themselves "professionals." Meanwhile the Bitcoin Forum
(Bitcointalk.org) boasts nearly 148,000 members. This number likely includes
non-active members and users that have more than one account. Assuming
(...again, no trolls please...) all LinkedIn Bitcoin Professionals are
also members of the Bitcoin Forum and a majority of Bitcoin users
are members of the Bitcoin Forum then only 1% of Bitcoin users consider
themselves "professionals." Meetup.com Bitcoin enthusiasts number around 6,950.
The top ten Meetup groups are: (1) Israel 624, (2) New York City 541, (3)
Argentina 524, (4) San Francisco 461, (5) London 433, (6) Vancouver 216, (7)
Toronto 210, (8) Chicago 205, (9) Budapest 203, (10) India 200. A list of all
Bitcoin Meetups can be found searching Meetup.com and I also created a Google
Docs Spreadsheet of eighty groups ranked by usercount (excluding splinter
groups). Then of course there is the Bitcoin Press Center run by Let's
Talk Bitcoin's very own Andreas M. Antonopoulos. The Bitcoin Press Center
is a "community site that provides bitcoin expert contacts for the global press
and media" and currently has more than 70 experts who speak 21 different
languages listed in the site. Perhaps there are a number of Bitcoin
professionals who are reluctant to use social networking sites like LinkedIn
because it doesn't provide pseudonymity that the cryptocurrency provides. Is
Eben Moglen a Bitcoin user? (I don't know- see Adrianne Jeffries' BetaBeat piece
"In Which Eben Moglen Like, Legit Yells at Me for Having Facebook")? However, I
think that LinkedIn is fairly representative of the number of Bitcoin
professionals. Perhaps what we're is missing is a definition of what a
"Bitcoin professional" is. Should it include Miners? Folks who get paid
in whole or in part by Bitcoin? Only persons involved full time Bitcoin
projects? Feel free to provide your response below. Note that this article has
not made a serious attempt to calculate the Total Universe of Bitcoin Users.
Others have tried to quantify this number while the Bitcoin wiki has this number
at 60,000 from September 2011 which was then based upon "how many Bitcoin
clients connected to the network in the last 24 hours." Meanwhile -elsewhere on
LinkedIn- the Atlantic Wire Reports: "Attention Terrorists Using LinkedIn: The
Government May Be Watching" Also note:
popular professional social networking site LinkedIn exceeded 2,000 on September
19th.
I have been maintaining a daily (in theory) count over at the
Bitcoin Bitskill Index at Bitcoin Hired. Although I have only been
compiling data since May 30th, when there was a user count of 1,108, it is
reasonable to assume/project that the number of profiles that contained bitcoin
first exceeded 1,000 sometime during May. LinkedIn also has a networking groups
for Bitcoin. The most popular group "Bitcoin P2P Digital Currency" has
2,186 members. It's interesting to note that this number is slightly larger than
the number of users who actively mentioned Bitcoin in their main LinkedIn
profile. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin Foundation has 244 Lifetime
Individual Members and 411 Annual Individual Members for a total
of 655 members. Assuming nearly all Bitcoin Foundation Members
have a LinkedIn profiles (I haven't verified this) and assuming LinkedIn
represents a majority of Bitcoin professionals (as opposed to say
enthusiasts and novices) then we can say that about 1/3rd (655/2,000) of all
Bitcoin professionals are members of the Bitcoin Foundation. However, I don't
think Bitcoin Miners are reflected in the pool of "Bitcoin
Professionals" since there are only around 100 profiles that mention
bitcoin mining. Without doing an actual survey I would gather that
those who actually make mining hardware and software (as opposed to end
users who are "simply" mining for bitcoin) or those who are
administrators of mining pools would be more inclined to include "bitcoin
mining" in a LinkedIn Profile. This is not to diminish miners who have a
valuable skill-set. Another recent milestone was on September 10th when the
number of Bitcoin subreddit readers exceeded 50,000. There
are currently more than 50,400 readers/subscribers. A current search of
popular subreddits shows (notice the number "175" in the URL) that
bitcoin is the 178th most popular subreddit (not restricted to
subscriber count). According to Stattit, as of May (I think) bitcoin was
the 321st most popular subreddit based on subscriber count (46,070). Assuming
(?) the last Stattit count is indeed from May then the bitcoin subreddit has
increased by about 4,330 subscribers or about 9% in the same timeframe that the
number of Bitcoin professional has doubled. Assuming (...no trolls please...)
all LinkedIn Bitcoin Professionals are also members of the
bitcoin subreddit and a majority of Bitcoin users are
members of the bitcoin subreddit then only about 4% of Bitcoin
users consider themselves "professionals." Meanwhile the Bitcoin Forum
(Bitcointalk.org) boasts nearly 148,000 members. This number likely includes
non-active members and users that have more than one account. Assuming
(...again, no trolls please...) all LinkedIn Bitcoin Professionals are
also members of the Bitcoin Forum and a majority of Bitcoin users
are members of the Bitcoin Forum then only 1% of Bitcoin users consider
themselves "professionals." Meetup.com Bitcoin enthusiasts number around 6,950.
The top ten Meetup groups are: (1) Israel 624, (2) New York City 541, (3)
Argentina 524, (4) San Francisco 461, (5) London 433, (6) Vancouver 216, (7)
Toronto 210, (8) Chicago 205, (9) Budapest 203, (10) India 200. A list of all
Bitcoin Meetups can be found searching Meetup.com and I also created a Google
Docs Spreadsheet of eighty groups ranked by usercount (excluding splinter
groups). Then of course there is the Bitcoin Press Center run by Let's
Talk Bitcoin's very own Andreas M. Antonopoulos. The Bitcoin Press Center
is a "community site that provides bitcoin expert contacts for the global press
and media" and currently has more than 70 experts who speak 21 different
languages listed in the site. Perhaps there are a number of Bitcoin
professionals who are reluctant to use social networking sites like LinkedIn
because it doesn't provide pseudonymity that the cryptocurrency provides. Is
Eben Moglen a Bitcoin user? (I don't know- see Adrianne Jeffries' BetaBeat piece
"In Which Eben Moglen Like, Legit Yells at Me for Having Facebook")? However, I
think that LinkedIn is fairly representative of the number of Bitcoin
professionals. Perhaps what we're is missing is a definition of what a
"Bitcoin professional" is. Should it include Miners? Folks who get paid
in whole or in part by Bitcoin? Only persons involved full time Bitcoin
projects? Feel free to provide your response below. Note that this article has
not made a serious attempt to calculate the Total Universe of Bitcoin Users.
Others have tried to quantify this number while the Bitcoin wiki has this number
at 60,000 from September 2011 which was then based upon "how many Bitcoin
clients connected to the network in the last 24 hours." Meanwhile -elsewhere on
LinkedIn- the Atlantic Wire Reports: "Attention Terrorists Using LinkedIn: The
Government May Be Watching" Also note:
