Since its humble beginnings in 2009, blockchain technology and crypto have come a long way. Today blockchain technology has impacted industries such as supply chain management and finance. The total valuation of the worldwide crypto market is around $1 trillion at the time of writing. The rapid adoption of crypto by businesses and individuals is driving its growth. However, many governments are skeptical about the impact of crypto on their economy and society. Amid these regulatory hurdles there are some countries which have led the way in terms of crypto adoption. This article will reveal the countries with the highest crypto usage.
Finding crypto users is hard
Most of us think finding the countries with the most crypto usage might be easy. However, the main advantages of crypto — freedom of transactions and anonymity — make it hard to determine where the transaction is coming from and who is behind it. There is no geographical data or IP address on the blockchain.
Crypto data firms use complex tracing and tracking methods to solve this problem. These methods involve finding wallet addresses and information in the public domain.
For example, if users post their wallet addresses on social media like Meta and Twitter, it is simple to link their identity to the wallet address. Likewise, many users buy crypto from centralized exchanges. These centralized exchanges provide wallets from a range of addresses, and it is possible to see where users purchased their tokens if their address is within this range.
This article will reveal the countries with the highest crypto usage based on the findings of Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis firm. This list is ranked based on the highest usage rates rather than the total usage of a country. This method ranks countries with the highest percentage of people using crypto higher.
Countries with the highest crypto usage rates
- Vietnam
- India
- Pakistan
- Ukraine
- Kenya
- Nigeria
- Venezuela
- United States
- Togo
- Argentina
What does this ranking tell us?
This ranking list might come as a surprise to most of us. It is vital to point out that popular crypto destinations like China, Japan, and Russia have higher total crypto usage, but only a small part of their populations use crypto.
There are three key findings that this data has collected
Higher crypto adoption in emerging markets
Most countries are emerging or developing economies in the top 10 list. There are a few centralized exchanges in emerging economies where large volumes of crypto can be traded daily. Developing countries have high remittances from relatives living abroad. Problems associated with international payments and currency depreciation can be solved using crypto. You can ensure your hard-earned savings do not lose value by using stablecoins. You can also avoid restrictions on international transactions by using crypto tokens.
Big economies reducing their P2P trades
Big economies have larger markets that can handle more transactions. These high-volume transactions make their market an attractive option for large investment firms and traders rather than individuals. More centralized players have entered markets like Japan and the US as the market value has risen.
A token is usually added to users’ accounts if you purchase it from a centralized exchange. Users then manually withdraw their crypto tokens into a wallet to use them. These types of trades are not transactions from one crypto wallet to another. These trades are reflected in the order books of the exchanges.
Retail individuals are the largest segment
Small retail investors make up the bulk of the crypto user base since most crypto transactions occur through P2P exchanges in emerging countries. Large businesses continue to trade in fiat currency rather than crypto.
There may be more volume traded in developed countries, but most of these transactions are not between crypto wallets. Most of these crypto trades do not alter the blockchain as they occur between accounts of the same centralized exchange.
What does the future hold for crypto adoption?
The future of crypto looks bright regardless of whether institutions trade in crypto or individuals transact in it. Crypto adoption has risen exponentially every year. The crypto industry is constantly innovating and evolving with the introduction of technologies such as NFTs, the metaverse, and decentralized finance (Defi). This rapid growth of crypto will bring it to the mainstream and motivate more individuals and businesses to use crypto.
You can know more about Crypto basics, market movements and latest updates on ZebPay blogs.
