Seven of the top 20 countries in Chainalysis’ global adoption index were countries in Central and South Asia.
India led global cryptocurrency adoption for the second year in a row as investors challenged the country’s tough regulatory stance and high business taxes, a report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis showed on Wednesday.
The report, which tracks adoption across four subcategories in 151 countries, showed that India ranked high in the use of centralized exchange and decentralized financial assets from June 2023 to July 2024.
India has taken a strong stance against cryptocurrencies since 2018, and in December 2023 the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) issued show-cause notices to nine offshore cryptocurrency exchanges for non-compliance with local regulations.
“India has also achieved a fairly broad level of adoption of different crypto assets despite restrictions, implying that new crypto entrants would have participated through services that were not banned,” said Eric Jardine, research lead at Chainalysis.
“We’ve now started to see some of those restrictions being lifted, for example with Binance, which will likely only amplify adoption in the country.”
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, was fined Rs 18.82 crore ($2.25 million) in June, a month after it registered with the FIU in an effort to resume operations in the country. Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin had registered with the watchdog in March but faced a smaller fine of Rs 34.5 lakh.
Seven of the top 20 countries in Chainalysis’ global adoption index were countries in Central and South Asia, including Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
The overall volume of decentralized transactions carried out in retail-sized transfers, worth less than $10,000 in cryptocurrency, was recorded in countries with lower per capita purchasing power, according to the report.
Trading was robust in Indonesia, which has banned the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment but allows investment in assets. The country recorded inflows of $157.1 billion in digital asset trading in the 12 months through July, the report said.
First published: September 11, 2024 | 10:50 PM IS
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