The 9 Most Visited Websites in the Bitcoin Ecosystem Revealed

In the past year, many websites and companies have tried to attract new Bitcoin users around the world. From exchanges to news sites, these companies cater to millions of visitors each month. I tend to deal a lot with comparisons and reviews of different Bitcoin services. In today’s post, I would like to present my latest research results that uncover the ten websites that get the highest Bitcoin traffic around the web. You be surprised at some of the websites that made it to the list.

The list is ordered by the amount of traffic each site receives. Since I couldn’t know the exact amount of traffic, I used web research tools such as Alexa and SimilarWeb to estimate. Each site will have its Alexa rank displayed (the lower rank, the more traffic the website gets) and also a graph of how this rank changed in the last few months.

I’ve also added additional background information on each website. For example, when the website was established, how many employees are working in each company (if this data was available) and also who is the main audience of the website.

Finally, I’ve added some data of the site’s reputation from around the web – mainly domain authority and how many different websites from around the web are linking to these sites. Domain Authority is basically a number from 1 to 100 which represents how authoritative this site is considered to be throughout the web. It is calculated by various factors that resemble how Google evaluates websites.

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#1 – Blockchain.info

Overview: Blockchain.info supplies a free hybrid wallet for Bitcoin users so they will be able to store their Bitcoins and access them from anywhere in the world. It also serves as a very popular block explorer.

Founded: August 28, 2011

Employees: 29

Alexa Rank: 3641

Est. June 2015 traffic: 4M

Users: 3.8M

Main audience: United States (29%)

Business model: Ad revenue on homepage

Apps: Andriod App, iOS App, ZeroBlock, Blockchain merchant, block explorer

Facebook Fans: 18,664

Twitter Followers: 58.5K

Domain Authority: 67 /100

#of websites linking to this site around the web: 914

Additional information:

$30M raised from the leading investors in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and London.

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#2- FreeBitco.in

Overview: The most popular Bitcoin faucet today, allowing players to win Bitcoins by opening up a free account.

Founded: Oct. 2013

Alexa Rank: 4795

Est. June 2015 traffic: 6.4M

Main audience: Russia (34%)

Business model: Previously from ads, today unclear

Domain Authority: 54/100

#of websites linking to this site around the web: 121

Additional information:

In the last month, Freebitco.in has gone through a website redesign and did not monetize through ads. Like many other faucets, the website offers a referral program that helps it to gain more users.

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#3 – BitcoinTalk.org

Overview: The oldest and most popular Bitcoin forum available today on the web.

Founded: June 09, 2011

Alexa Rank: 6256

Est. June 2015 traffic: 3.1M

Registered members: 520,139

Main audience: United States (40%)

Business model: Ads

Domain Authority: 56/100

#of websites linking to this site around the web: 461

Additional information:
BitcoinTalk allows its users to gain additional income by promoting other companies in their post signature. This generates revenue to the forum users as well as the website itself.

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#4 – Coinbase

Overview: Coinbase is a company supplying a wide variety of Bitcoin services such as a Bitcoin wallet, a Bitcoin exchange, merchant payment solutions and also acts as a Bitcoin broker. It is considered to be one of the leading companies in the Bitcoin ecosystem today.

Founded: June 1st, 2012

Employees: 100-250

Alexa Rank: 6532

Est. April 2015 traffic: 2.4 million

Users: 2.4M (39K merchants)

Main audience: US (70%)

Business model: Transaction fees from buyers and merchants.

Apps: Android – Coinbase wallet, Coinbase exchange, Coinbase merchant. iOS – Coinbase wallet.

Facebook Fans: 17,582 fans

Twitter Followers: 52.4K followers

Domain Authority: 66 out of 100

#of websites linking to this site around the web: 439

Additional information:

Founded at Y-Combinator, Received $106.7m in VC funding (complete investor list), Acquired Blockr.io and Kippt.

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#5 – BTC-E

Overview: One of the oldest and largest Bitcoin trading platforms out there today. BTC-E has been known to keep an air of mystery around itself – Meaning no one knows exactly who is operating the exchange.

Founded: June 2011

Alexa Rank: 7216

Est. June 2015 traffic: 1.5M

Main audience: Russia (29%)

Business model: Trading and deposit fees

Twitter fans: 18.2K

Domain Authority: 50/100

#of websites linking to this site around the web: 234

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#6 – CoinDesk

Overview: The leading Bitcoin news site today. Coindesk supplies daily news coverage of cryptocurrency events around the world. It also conducts market research on the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Founded: April 2013

# of employees: 16

Alexa Rank: 10,176

Est. June 2015 traffic: 1.8M

Main audience: USA (48%)

Business model: Advertising on website, selling market research reports

Twitter Followers: 66.4K

Facebook Fans: 14,845

Domain Authority: 77/100

#of websites linking to this site around the web: 983

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#7 – MoonBit.co.in

Overview: Bitcoin Faucet

Founded: July 2014

Alexa Rank: 10,211

Est. June. 2015 traffic: 2M

Main audience: Russia (35%)

Business model: Ads, Referral commissions (Xapo)

Domain Authority: 39/100

#of websites linking to this site around the web: 46

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#8 – Bitcoin Aliens

Overview: An extremely popular Bitcoin faucet blog. Bitcoin Aliens provides reviews and updates on the best Bitcoin faucets available. The site also runs a mobile faucet in the form of an app for iOS and Android.

Founded: July 2014

Alexa Rank: 10,297

Est. June 2015 traffic: 1.2M

Main audience: Russia (32%)

Business model: Ads, referral commissions from other faucets.

Apps: iOS and Android apps

Facebook page: 1,739

Domain Authority: 32/100

#of linking domains: 11

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# 9 – BitcoinWisdom

Overview: A website that displays extensive data about Bitcoin and Litecoin from the network and various exchanges.

Founded: April 2013

Alexa Rank: 10,718

Est. June 2015 traffic: 2.2M

Main audience: United States (37%)

Business model: Ads

Domain Authority: 45/100

#of linking domains: 253

Additional information:

The website allows you to remove ads by purchasing a premium account for 0.04BTC / month or 0.4BTC / year.

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After conducting this research, I was amazed to see that the websites that get the highest amount of traffic are mainly Bitcoin faucets. Of course one can argue that sites like Coinbase don’t get as much traffic on the web since a lot of people access their services through mobile apps, but nevertheless the sheer amount of traffic Bitcoin faucets get is pretty astonishing.

Also, you’ll see that most of the traffic the faucets receive is from Russia, which is usually considered less quality traffic around the web.

Another interesting distinction is that BTC-E is the second largest exchange on the web, even though no one knows who operates it. My guess is that this is due to the fairly simple process the site has for trading Bitcoins. It doesn’t require any form of identification, unlike most exchanges.

Last but not least, other than Bitcoin Aliens and Moonbit.co.in the majority of websites had a decline in traffic the past few months and now seem to be ramping it up again, this is probably due to the latest increase in the Bitcoin exchange rate.

sources: Alexa, SimliarWeb, CrunchBase, OpenSiteExplorer, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit

Ofir Beigel