Cryptocurrency has been around for a while now but it wasn’t till last year that it went full global, with over 154 countries in on the cryptocurrency trend now. The Global Crypto Adoption Index from Chainalysis scores countries on three different metrics which include total crypto activity, trading activity of non-professional users and peer-to-peer exchange trade volume. According to a new data analysis from the blockchain firm, it seems like global crypto adoption went up 881% in the last year with Vietnam in the lead, followed by India and Pakistan at second and third places respectively.
The purpose of this index is to analyze how ordinary people are adopting the crypto trend into their lives and ‘focus on transactions and individual savings instead of trading and speculations.’ The trend of the top 20 countries on the global crypto adoption index shows those countries which are emerging economies such as Togo, Colombia, Thailand, and Afghanistan.
The reports by Chainalysis show that many users rely on P2P cryptocurrency exchanges as their primary trading option because they don’t have much access to centralized exchanges. The reports also suggest that many of the users of these countries use cryptocurrency as their savings when they are faced with currency devaluation and also use them to carry out business transactions.
Vietnam is one of the top markets for Bitrefill, a company that lets customers buy gift cards using cryptocurrency. “Vietnam stood out to me because it dominated the index,” said Chainalysis’ director of research, Kim Grauer. “We heard from experts that people in Vietnam have a history of gambling, and the young, tech-savvy people don’t have much to do with their funds in terms of investing in a traditional ETF, both of which drive crypto adoption,” Grauer said. Another common factor for the top-ranking countries on the list is that many have capital controls or a huge immigrant population. Another example is of Afghanistan as the country’s condition is uncertain right now and it’s difficult to move money in and out.
Data analysts claim that there is no perfect way to measure per capita global crypto adoption but the index by Chainalysis gives a good estimate.