Cryptocurrency analytics firm DataLight announced the results of research aimed at revealing the location of cryptocurrency traders over the course of 2018.
The firm took data from the one hundred most popular cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume.
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Traders – or perhaps potential traders – were identified by their IP address.
This is somewhat problematic. One person might visit a cryptocurrency exchange from multiple IP addresses for instance.
It also means, though DataLight stated this very clearly, that Chinese investors were not counted as they can only access crypto exchanges via a VPN.
But that, in turn, could corrupt other data. If Chinese traders were all using US IP addresses, for example, it would bump up the number of ‘American’ investors accessing crypto exchanges.
With those problems in mind, the data published by the analytics company is still revealing.
USA! USA!
Americans are – by a long way – the most likely to visit a cryptocurrency exchange website.
On average, 22.2 million people in the US visited cryptocurrency exchanges each month in 2018.
Japan was next, with 6.1 million people in the Land of the Rising Sun accessing cryptocurrency exchanges each month last year.
In a close third was South Korea. Koreans have eagerly embraced cryptocurrency and, for each month of 2018, 5.7 million of them visited crypto exchange websites.
Perhaps the most surprising countries to make DataLight’s top 20 were Vietnam (8), Ukraine (12) and Mexico (16).
Bad fiat = more crypto
The three countries’ addition to the top 20 probably indicates that a lack of confidence in local fiat currency can drive cryptocurrency adoption.
Venezuela, which did not make DataLight’s top 20 but now has thousands of merchants accepting crypto as a form of payment, is probably the best example of this.
Turkey, which came in at number 9, is also indicative of this. Economic turbulence in the country has led to the lire – the local currency – tanking.
According to DataLight, when the lira dropped in value by 10 percent last August, there was a concurrent spike in Turkish cryptocurrency trading volumes.