Crypto adoption jumps 881 per cent in a year
Crypto ownership has surged during the pandemic with adoption rising by 881 per cent in the year ending on June 30 2021.
New data shows that global crypto adoption has risen from an index score of 2.5 to 24 over the year. According to Chainalysis, the publishers of the Global Crypto Adoption Index, crypto ownership has “skyrocketed” by 2300 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
The Index measures retail crypto activity in order to gage how widely crypto has been adopted by non-professional investors.
Kim Grauer, who authored the report, commented on the data. She said “The discussion about cryptocurrency’s growth over the past year has often focused on institutional adoption… but we also wanted to study how cryptocurrency is used by average people across the world.”
Several countries in emerging markets ranked highly on the Index with Vietnam topping the list for global adoption while Kenya ranked in fifth and Venezuela came seventh. China dropped from fourth place down to thirteenth while the US dropped from sixth to eighth place.
Grauer added: “our findings show a robust community of users in places like Vietnam, Pakistan, and Kenya, demonstrating that cryptocurrency is truly global.”
According to the report, crypto adoption in developing economies is being driven by activity on peer-to-peer exchanges, which have lower barriers to entry than their centralised counterparts and allow users to swap coins directly.
The report speculated that currency devaluation and the need to make fast, low-cost international payments could be driving investors in emerging economies to put their money in crypto en masse.
Read more: Sudden rise of Solana takes crypto markets by surprise