REPORT | Adoption of Crypto Assets Has Outpaced Growth for Mobile Phones and the Internet, Says Latest 2025 BlackRock Report

The continued digital transformation of the global economy is changing the world of finance, with the maturation of digital assets infrastructure easing barriers of access and creating new use cases for bitcoin.

CryptoGuru··4 min read

Crypto has outpaced the growth of mobile phones and the internet, says the latest 2025 report by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager (Over $11.6 trillion in AUM as of December 31, 2024).

According to the report, crypto reached 300 million users faster than the internet and mobile phones since their inceptions.

Bitcoin is the leading and most widely adopted crypto asset, boasting a market cap of over $2 trillion. Its global and decentralized nature positions it as a potential alternative to traditional monetary systems, particularly in times of global instability and declining trust in institutional and governmental fiat currencies.

This has not gone unnoticed by investors, with both institutions and individuals increasingly incorporating bitcoin into their portfolios.

 

 

Key Takeaways

  • Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptoasset, has seen rapid adoption, drawing interest from both individual and institutional investors.
  • Investing directly in bitcoin traditionally poses several challenges, including the need to open new accounts, potential high trading fees, and security concerns.
  • ETFs simplify bitcoin exposure by offering it through a familiar and widely-traded investment vehicle.

 

Historically, however, accessing bitcoin has been cumbersome due to the need for new accounts, high trading fees, and security issues. Similar to how ETFs have democratized access to challenging markets like gold and international stocks, Bitcoin ETFs now offer a convenient avenue for gaining bitcoin exposure.


Bitcoin’s Rapid Adoption

Since its inception in 2009, bitcoin’s adoption rate has surpassed that of other revolutionary technologies like the internet and mobile phones.

Several factors have fueled this accelerated growth:

  • Demographic Patterns: Younger generations, often considered “digital natives,” show a greater propensity for bitcoin adoption compared to Gen X and Baby Boomers.
  • Global Shifts: Concerns such as inflation, political divisions, and fiscal instability have heightened bitcoin’s appeal as a decentralized asset.
  • Future of Finance: The ongoing digital transformation of the global economy is reshaping finance, with advancements in digital asset infrastructure reducing access barriers and expanding bitcoin’s use cases.

 

As reported by BitKE in 2022, Wells Fargo Investment Institute, a leading banking and investment management firm globally, released a report highlighting that crypto is still in its very early start.


According to the company, crypto adoption is following a similar adoption path to the internet seen in the early-to-mid 1990s.

The report says that cryptocurrencies appear to be near a hyper-adoption phase making them a viable investment today even though they remain in the early stages of their investment evolution.

Here is a comparison of crypto adoption vs early ’90s internet adoption according to the report:

  • It often takes many years, sometimes decades, between the actual inventions and surging adoption rates – Less than 1% of the world was using the internet in mid-90s after 12 years. Similarly, roughly 3% of the world uses cryptocurrencies since its inception 13 years go
  • User experience in the early days are often clunky and frustrating and consumers figuring out how the technology can benefit them – In the early 90s before the web browser, using the internet was limiting and frustrating. Simiarly, crypto is still daunting to many today and use cases remain majorly unclear
  • Adoption rates rise quickly and hit an inflection point – After a slow start in the early ’90s, internet usage surged from 77 million in 1996 to over 412 million in 2000. Simiarly, crypto usage has more than doubled in just one year
  • Regulatory Progress – Legal and oversight frameworks are drawn to solidify investable assets and a lack thereof is an important roadblock. Currently regulatory progress in crypto will support acceleration of crypto adoption
  • Early-stage investing is often fraught with violent boom and bust cycles – As many dot-com companies and investors can attest from 20 years go, there are now over 17, 000 cryptos with odds being high that many will see future shakeout events
See also
  • Picking long-term technology winners is no walk in the park – The most visited websites in the mid-90s did not stay relevant much beyond the year 2000. Interestingly, the most successful company today from that error was a small hardware company on the brink of bankruptcy in 1997. Similarly, it is difficult to figure out who will emerge a big player today in the crypto space.

Similarly, in 2022, another report on the adoption of bitcoin technology came out which stated that bitcoin adoption was just entering the 2nd stage of technology adoption, ‘the early adopters’ phase.’

The report by Blockware Solutions, a firm which develops blockchain infrastructure, estimated that 254 million people globally, about 3% of the human population, are Bitcoin users. The analysis said that ‘new users come in during bull runs, most stay, and some are shaken out in the bear-down moments of the market.’

Besides the analysis of the cryptocurrency activity, Blockware determined the proportion of users (American households) adopting Bitcoin by comparing with nine disruptive technologies, which included:

  • Automobile
  • Radio
  • Landline
  • Smartphone
  • Internet
  • Social Media

According to the report, while technologies change, human reaction to innovation can mostly be predicted. This prediction is outlined in the widely-used ‘S-Curve’ depicted in the chart above.

 

 

 

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