SouthEast Asia nations have taken pole positions in crypto adoption
India has bagged the second position in crypto adoption, just behind Vietnam, which ranked first, and Pakistan that ranked third in a global cryptocurrency adoption survey conducted in 154 countries by cryptocurrency research consulting firm, Chainalysis.
The Germany based company has conducted research between July 2020 and June 2021 to find out the level of cryptocurrency adoption and usage by individuals in the world.
The survey
The report titled‘2021 Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index’ said that globally adoption of cryptocurrency grew by a whopping 800% in the past year, especially in emerging markets.
The report attributed the increase to people turning towards virtual money to preserve their savings in the face of currency devaluation, to send and receive remittances and carry out business transactions.
Emerging market economies took the top spots due to huge transaction volumes on peer-to-peer platforms (P2P) when adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), a measure of the country’s wealth per resident per capita and internet-using population, the research firm said in a statement.
However, on peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms exchange volume, India performance was not good and it ranked 72 out of 154 nations.
Kenya was ranked first, Togo second, and Vietnam third in terms of P2P exchange trade volume.
Several countries in emerging markets, including Nigeria and Venezuela ranked high because they have huge transaction volumes on P2P platforms, the report adds.
Chainalysis said that interviews with experts in these countries revealed that many residents use P2P cryptocurrency exchanges as their primary on-ramp into cryptocurrency, often because they don’t have access to centralized exchanges.
India’s high ranking in global crypto adoption comes at the backdrop of the finance minister’s Nirmala Sitaraman’s announcement that ‘The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021’ is ready and anytime, it will be introduced in the parliament.
It may be noted that the Indian government has formed an inter-ministerial panel on cryptocurrency under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Economic Affairs), which was tasked to study various issues related to virtual currencies and proposed specific actions to the government.
Crypto growth
Giving out more details on the growth of crypto in emerging markets, the report said that many emerging markets represented in the research limit the amount of the national currency that residents can move out of the country.
Cryptocurrency gives those residents a way to circumvent those limits so that they can meet their financial needs.
When it came to on-chain value received, which refers to a metric calculated by estimating total cryptocurrency received by that country, PPP per capita, India ranked third globally, behind China ranking first and Vietnam taking the second rank.
This report reflects the growing popularity of cryptocurrency in India. In June 2021, Chainalysis said that with over 15 million holders, crypto investments in India skyrocketed by over 612% to nearly $6.6 billion, against $923 million recorded in April 2020.
Jagdish Kumar,
Klever Writer
