Do you know where that 100k number comes from? I see it said a lot but the only source listed is an ibtimes story saying "an industry source says 100k". Has anyone figured out how it was calculated?
I'd be curious to see what the active merchants per month actually are for Bitpay and Coinbase. Until then I have a hard time believing they actually have those numbers live given the number of stories I've seen of people visiting stores/restaurants that accept bitcoin only to be told they don't do that anymore.
Coinbase has 38k: https://www.coinbase.com/about
Gocoin has 5.5k: https://ihb.io/2015-01-29/news/gocoin-announces-5500-merchan...
That's already 93.5k from merely 3 american bitcoin gateways. Add the rest of the world (China, etc) and it is clear there are 100k or more.