According to Chainalysis’ 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index, India is second only to Vietnam in terms of global cryptocurrency adoption.
Worldwide adoption of cryptocurrency has increased by more than 2,300 percent since third quarter 2019 and by over 881 percent over the past year.
The report stated that “our research suggests that there are many reasons for increased adoption around the globe — in emerging market, many people turn to cryptocurrency to save their money in the face currency devaluation, send & receive remittances and conduct business transactions. While adoption in North America and Western Europe over the past year has been largely driven by institutional investment.”
The three metrics used to rank countries were peer-to-peer exchange volume and value received. India was followed at rank three and four by Pakistan and Ukraine, respectively. The ranking of the USA and China dropped from sixth to eighth, and from fourth to 13th, respectively.
This report attributes the drop in ranking to falling volumes of P2P in these two countries, compared with worldwide volumes.
The majority of top 20 countries are developed countries such as Kenya, Togo, and Tanzania. Many emerging markets are facing significant currency devaluation which has driven residents to purchase cryptocurrency on P2P platforms to protect their savings. According to the report, others in these regions use cryptocurrency for international transactions. This could be for personal remittances, or commercial use cases such as buying goods to import and export.
“Many emerging markets here limit the amount that residents can move outside of the country in terms of national currency. It said that cryptocurrency allows residents to bypass these restrictions so they can meet their financial requirements.”