I agree with your remark about the relative and absolute comparisons. However, in this case, the discussion were about the "popularity", or the "reach" of bitc

I agree with your remark about the relative and absolute comparisons. However, in this case, the discussion were about the "popularity", or the "reach" of bitcoin. The underlying assumption (by me) is that absolute value would strongly correlate with the number of people knowing about bitcoin, hence the absolute number remark.