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The 2022 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report
 

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The 2022 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report

The 2022 Geography of
Cryptocurrency Report
Everything you need to know about crypto adoption around the globe

Table of Contents
The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index

3

North America

11

Latin America

19

Central, Northern & Western Europe

28

Eastern Europe

36

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

45

Eastern Asia

55

Emerging markets lead in grassroots
adoption, China remains active despite
ban, and crypto fundamentals
appear healthy
We’re excited to share with you Chainalysis’ 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index. For the third
consecutive year, we ranked all countries by grassroots cryptocurrency adoption.

What is grassroots adoption of cryptocurrency?
Think of it this way: We could easily rank countries by raw cryptocurrency transaction volume, which
would give you a straightforward view of where the most cryptocurrency activity is happening. But
that’s not what we’re interested in. The goal of our index is to measure where the most people are
putting the biggest share of their money into cryptocurrency. While institutional activity is important
to that, we also want to highlight the countries where individual, non-professional investors are
embracing digital assets the most. You can read our methodology below to learn how we do that,
then keep scrolling to see the top 20 of our index. You can also go to page 82 of this report to see the
full list of country rankings.

Our methodology
Our Global Crypto Adoption Index is made up of five sub-indexes, each of which is based on
countries’ usage of different types of cryptocurrency services. We rank all 146 countries for which
we have sufficient data according to each of those five metrics, take the geometric mean of each
country’s ranking in all five, and then normalize that final number on a scale of 0 to 1 to give every
country a score that determines the overall rankings. The closer the country’s final score is to 1, the
higher the rank.
In order to calculate our sub-indexes, we estimate countries’ cryptocurrency transaction volumes for
different services and protocols based on the web traffic patterns of those services’ and protocols’
websites, with web traffic data provided by Similarweb. Relying on web traffic data means that
usage of VPNs and other products that mask online activity could throw off our rankings, but given
that our index takes into account hundreds of millions of transactions, VPN usage would need to be
extremely widespread to meaningfully skew our data. Experts we interviewed for the report generally

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index

4

agreed that our index matches their perceptions of the markets they operate in, giving us more
confidence in the methodology.
Below, we lay out our five sub-indexes and how they’re calculated.

On-chain cryptocurrency value received at centralized exchanges, weighted by
purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita
The goal of this sub-index is to rank each country by total cryptocurrency activity occurring on
centralized services, and to then weight the rankings to favor countries where that amount is more
significant based on the wealth of the average person and value of money generally within the
country. We calculate the metric by estimating total cryptocurrency received by users of centralized
services in each country, and weighting the on-chain value based on PPP per capita, which is a
measure of the country’s wealth per resident. The higher the ratio of on-chain value received to PPP
per capita, the higher the ranking, meaning that if two countries had equal cryptocurrency value
received, the country with the lower PPP per capita would rank ahead.

On-chain retail value received at centralized exchanges, weighted by PPP per
capita
The goal of this metric is to measure the activity of non-professional, individual cryptocurrency users
at centralized services, based on how much cryptocurrency they’re transacting compared to the
wealth of the average person. We approximate individuals’ cryptocurrency activity by measuring the
amount of cryptocurrency moved in retail transactions, which we designate as any transaction for
under $10,000 USD worth of cryptocurrency. We then rank each country according to this metric but
weight it to favor countries with a lower PPP per capita.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange trade volume, weighted by PPP per capita and
number of internet users
P2P trade volume makes up a significant percentage of all cryptocurrency in emerging markets. For
this sub-index, we rank countries by their P2P trade volume and weight it to favor countries with
lower PPP per capita and fewer internet users, the goal being to highlight countries where more
residents are putting a larger share of their overall wealth into P2P cryptocurrency transactions.

On-chain cryptocurrency value received from DeFi protocols, weighted by PPP
per capita
DeFi has been one of the fastest-growing areas of cryptocurrency over the last two years. In fact, as
we see in the case of DEXes vs. CEXes, decentralized cryptocurrency protocols, which primarily use
Ether as opposed to Bitcoin, have at times overtaken centralized services in on-chain transaction
volume. Given the importance of DeFi to innovation in cryptocurrency, we wanted our adoption index

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index

5

to highlight countries where users are concentrating a disproportionately high share of their financial
activity in DeFi protocols. For this sub-Index, we rank countries by their DeFi transaction volume,
with weighting to favor countries with lower PPP per capita.

On-chain retail value received from DeFi protocols, weighted by PPP per capita
Just as we want our index to incorporate the activity of non-professional, individual cryptocurrency
users on centralized services, we want to do the same with DeFi. So, this sub-index ranks each
country by DeFi transaction volume carried out in retail-sized transfers, weighted to favor countries
with lower PPP per capita.

How our methodology changed this year
The biggest change to our index methodology this year is the addition of two sub-indexes based on
DeFi transaction volume, and the modification of two other sub-indexes to include only transaction
volume associated with centralized services. We did this for two reasons: First, as we explain above,
to highlight countries leading the way in DeFi given its importance to the overall cryptocurrency
ecosystem. Second, we wanted to address the issue of DeFi-driven inflation of transaction volume.
Deposits to and withdrawals from centralized services show up in on-chain transaction volume, but
transactions within those services, such as trades on a centralized exchange, do not. Centralized
services track that transaction volume internally, such as in order books for exchanges, meaning
we don’t have access to it. This is not the case with DeFi protocols. Because DeFi protocols are
non-custodial and simply route cryptocurrency between private wallets, all DeFi transactions show
up on-chain. That means that if you’re using on-chain data, DeFi protocol transaction volumes will
receive a bump that volumes associated with centralized services don’t receive. In the context of this
index, that could lead to us artificially favoring countries with higher DeFi adoption over ones with
more activity on centralized services, even if the amount of real transaction activity is the same.
In order to address this, we decided to measure each country’s CeFi and DeFi transaction volumes
separately — both in total and at the retail level — and use them as equal components of the Global
Crypto Adoption Index. This way, every country’s transaction volume is compared more accurately,
and we can be transparent about which countries see more transaction volume in the DeFi
ecosystem.

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index

6

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index Top 20
Country

Overall
index
ranking

Centralized
service value
received
ranking

Retail
centralized
service value
received ranking

P2P exchange
trade volume
ranking

Defi value
rreceived
ranking

Retail DeFi
value received
ranking

Vietnam

1

5

5

2

7

6

Philippines

2

4

4

66

13

5

Ukraine

3

6

6

39

10

14

India

4

1

1

82

1

1

United States

5

3

3

111

3

2

Pakistan

6

10

10

50

22

16

Brazil

7

7

7

113

8

7

Thailand

8

12

12

61

5

3

Russia

9

8

8

109

11

12

China

10

2

2

144

6

4

Nigeria

11

18

18

17

20

17

Turkey

12

9

9

121

19

15

Argentina

13

13

13

26

21

25

Morocco

14

19

19

21

33

18

Colombia

15

23

23

10

27

29

Nepal

16

17

17

19

34

41

United Kingdom

17

14

14

71

12

11

Ecuador

18

37

37

6

45

56

Kenya

19

43

43

5

9

34

Indonesia

20

16

16

129

18

13

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index

7

Key takeaways from the 2022 Crypto Adoption Index
Overall adoption slows worldwide in bear market, but remains above pre-bull
market levels
Our data shows that global adoption has leveled off in the last year after growing consistently since
mid-2019. We look at this trend in the chart below, where we apply our index methodology globally
by summing all 154 countries’ Global Crypto Adoption Index scores quarterly, from Q2 2019 to the
present, and re-index that number again to show adoption growth over time across the world.

Global index score by quarter, Q2 2019–Q2 2022

Global Index Score

1.00
0.75
0.50
0.25
0.00
Q1

19

20

Q2

19

20

Q3

19

20

Q4

19

20

Q1

20

20

Q2

20

20

Q3

20

20

Q4

20

20

Q1

21

20

Q2

21

20

Q3

21

20

Q4

21

20

Q1

22

20

Q2

22

20

Global adoption of cryptocurrency reached its current all-time high in Q2 2021. Since then, adoption
has moved in waves – it fell in Q3, which saw crypto price declines, rebounded in Q4 when we saw
prices rebound to new all-time highs, and has fallen in each of the last two quarters as we’ve entered
a bear market. Still, it’s important to note that global adoption remains well above its pre-bull
market 2019 levels.
The data suggests that many of those attracted by rising prices in 2020 and 2021 stuck around,
and continue to invest a significant chunk of their assets in digital assets. That also aligns with our
previous research showing that cryptocurrency markets have been surprisingly resilient through
recent declines. Big, long-term cryptocurrency holders have continued to hold through the bear
market, and so while their portfolios have lost value, those losses aren’t locked in yet because they
haven’t sold— the on-chain data suggests those holders are optimistic the market will bounce back,
which keeps market fundamentals relatively healthy.

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index

8

Emerging markets dominate the Global Crypto Adoption Index
One trend we noted last year has only gotten stronger this year: Emerging markets dominate the
index. The World Bank categorizes countries into one of four categories based on income levels
and overall economic development: high income, upper middle income, lower middle income, and
low income. Using that framework, we find that the middle two categories dominate the top of our
index. Out of our top 20 ranked countries:
• Ten are lower middle income: Vietnam, Philippines, Ukraine, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Morocco,
Nepal, Kenya, and Indonesia
• Eight are upper middle income: Brazil, Thailand, Russia, China, Turkey, Argentina, Colombia, and
Ecuador
• Two are high income: United States and United Kingdom
As we explore later in the report, users in lower middle and upper middle income countries often
rely on cryptocurrency to send remittances, preserve their savings in times of fiat currency volatility,
and fulfill other financial needs unique to their economies. These countries also tend to lean on
Bitcoin and stablecoins more than other countries. Over the coming years, it’ll be interesting to see
what solutions the cryptocurrency industry can build to increase adoption in high and low income
countries.

Vietnam holds on to top spot, U.S. jumps to fifth, China back in top ten
There are also a few individual countries whose rankings stand out to us.
For the second consecutive year, Vietnam is ranked first in cryptocurrency adoption. A look at the
sub-rankings shows that Vietnam shows extremely high purchasing power and population-adjusted
adoption across centralized, DeFi, and P2P cryptocurrency tools. Other sources have also noted
Vietnam’s love of cryptocurrency. Polling done in 2020 found that 21% of Vietnamese consumers
reported using or owning cryptocurrency, second only to Nigeria at 32%, and the adoption rate has
likely only grown since then. Reports from local media suggest that cryptocurrency-based gaming,
including games following the play to earn (P2E) and move to earn (M2E) models, are particularly popular in the Southeast Asian country. That goes not just for users, but builders too, as the
top-grossing P2E game Axie Infinity is based in Ho Chi Minh City, with its success inspiring more
crypto gaming startups to find success in Vietnam.
The United States moved up to fifth in our index rankings from eighth in 2021 and sixth in 2020.
The U.S. ranks in the top three of each sub-index, with the exception of population and purchasing
power-adjusted P2P exchange usage, where it ranks much lower at 111th. This isn’t surprising, as our
research shows that P2P exchange usage tends to be highest in countries with low purchasing power.
Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the United States is by far the highest-ranked developed

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index

9

market country on our index, and one of only two to make the top 20 along with the UK. We’ll
explore reasons for this later in our section on North America.
Finally, China re-entered the top ten of our index this year after placing 13th in 2021. Our sub-indexes show that China is especially strong in usage of centralized services, placing second overall for
purchasing power-adjusted transaction volume at both the overall and retail levels. This is especially
interesting given the Chinese government’s crackdown on cryptocurrency activity, which includes
a ban on all cryptocurrency trading announced in September 2021. Our data suggests that while the
ban initially caused a large dropoff in crypto activity, China’s market has bounced back in recent
months, suggesting that the ban is perhaps ineffective or loosely enforced.

Bear markets can’t wipe out bull market adoption
As we noted above, while growth has become more sporadic with the onset of the latest bear
market, global adoption remains well above the levels that preceded the 2020 bull market. The data
suggests that a critical mass of new users who put capital into cryptocurrency during periods of price
growth tend to stay even when prices decline, allowing the ecosystem to consistently grow on net
across market cycles. One reason for this could be the value that users in emerging markets get from
cryptocurrency. These countries dominate the adoption index, in large part because cryptocurrency
provides unique, tangible benefits to people living in unstable economic conditions. We’ll explore
these dynamics more in the full report.

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index

10

North America

North America

11

North America’s cryptocurrency activity
summarized
Cryptocurrency value received by North America
Compared to rest of world, July 2021 – June 2022

North America
19.0%

Rest of world
81.0%

North America: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022
$1T

$750B

$500B

$250B

$0

North America

United States

Canada

Bermuda

12

Regional transaction volume by transfer size, July 2021 – June 2022
Large institutional (>$10M)

Institutional ($1M-$10M)

Professional ($10k-$1M)

Large retail ($1k-$10k)

Small retail (<$1k)

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Total value received by region by type of service, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchange
P2P Exchange

Other

DeFi
Mixing

Gambling platform
Mining

Illicit

High-risk exchange
High-risk jurisdictions

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

North America

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

13

DeFi-driven cryptocurrency markets in
North America were strong but volatile
over the last year
North America is the second-biggest cryptocurrency market we study with $1.15 trillion worth of
cryptocurrency received between July 2021 and June 2022, representing 19% of global activity during
that time period. The United States accounted for the vast majority of that activity.

Share of all cryptocurrency transaction value received by region, March 2019 – June 2022
Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East & North Africa

North America

Western Europe

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Q1

19

20

Q2

19

20

Q3

19

20

Q4

19

20

Q1

20

20

Q2

20

20

Q3

20

20

Q4

20

20

Q1

21

20

Q2

21

20

Q3

21

20

Q4

21

20

Q1

22

20

Q2

22

20

North America has been the second-most active cryptocurrency region since Eastern Asia’s dropoff
in mid-2020, and recently, DeFi has been a huge booster of activity in the region. Between July 2021
and June 2022, DeFi has accounted for 37% of all North American cryptocurrency transaction volume
— more than any other region. Western Europe is second at 31%, while other regions like Sub-Saharan Africa have as little as 13% of activity coming from DeFi.
DeFi is still where many of the most cutting edge cryptocurrency projects are built, and these tend to
catch on first in North America and Western Europe. In order to learn more about this dynamic, we
spoke with Matt Van Buskirk, who led compliance at Circle and currently is Co-founder and Co-CEO
of crypto-friendly compliance startup Hummingbird. “There are big concentrations of developer
talent and academic interest in hubs like New York and London, so you see a lot of blockchain
projects from those areas,” said Matt. “I’m advising people building great projects in places like

North America

14

Latin America, but it’s harder for them to find talent and funding without coming to somewhere like
Silicon Valley.”
In addition, many DeFi use cases, such as yield farming and trading of new tokens on DEXes, are
highly speculative, which will naturally attract investors who have either built up solid crypto
holdings already or otherwise have money to play with. You’re more likely to find those investors in
developed markets of North America and Western Europe, and less so in emerging markets.
At the moment though, the bear market appears to have dampened North America’s crypto markets,
both DeFi and CeFi, just as it has in other regions. Let’s dive more into what the last year looked like
for cryptocurrency usage in North America.

How DeFi domination shapes the ebbs and flows of North
America’s crypto markets

Share of cryptocurrency transaction value by region: DeFi vs. CeFi, July 2021 – June 2022
Value received from DeFi

Value received from centralized services

$1.5T

$1T

$500B

$0

Central &
Southern Asia
and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern
Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western
Europe

North America has adopted DeFi more than any other region, which has also had the knock-on effect
of making it the region where Bitcoin’s dominance has decreased most over the last year.

North America

15

Annual decline in bitcoin dominance by region,
July 2020 – June 2021 vs. July 2021 – June 2022

0%

-2%

-2%

-3%
-4%

-4%

-4%

-3%

-3%

-5%
-6%

-6%

-8%

North
America

Western
Europe

SSA

Eastern
Asia

MENA

Eastern
Europe

CSAO

Latin
America

DeFi is a rather broad term though. What specific use cases are leading DeFi adoption in
North America?

North America DeFi category comparison:
Total value received vs. Number of transfers vs. Web traffic, July 2021 – June 2022
Bubble size: Website traffic
$250B

DEX

Total value received

Derivatives
Token Smart Contract Lending Contract

$150B

NFT

Bridge
Smart Contract

$50B

Gaming and Entertainment

Air drop

$0
100,000

1,000,000

10,000,000

100,000,000

Number of transfers

Web traffic data source: Similarweb

North America

16

The answer depends on how you look at things. DEXes lead in total value received, but lag well
behind NFTs in website traffic and number of individual transfers. One could draw the conclusion
that NFTs are leading grassroots adoption, and as we’ve explored before, have been a leading draw
for users new to cryptocurrency. DEXes, on the other hand, with their bigger transfer sizes and higher
transaction volume, appear to get more usage from professional and even institutional users.
North America’s disproportionate embrace of DeFi has led its cryptocurrency market to behave differently than the rest of the world’s over the last year, often with more extreme swings in activity. Check
out the charts below, which show quarterly changes in overall transaction volume for North America
and the rest of the world, broken down by DeFi compared to centralized exchanges.

North America: QoQ change in transaction volume, DeFi vs.Centralized exchanges, Q3 2020 – Q2 2022
Centralized exchanges

DeFi

$1.5T
$1T
$500B
$0
-$500B
-$1T
-$1.5T

North America

Q3 2020

Q4 2020

Q1 2021

Q2 2021

Q3 2021

Q4 2021

Q1 2022

Q2 2022

17

Rest of world: QoQ change in transaction volume, DeFi vs. Centralized exchanges, Q3 2020 – Q2 2022
Centralized exchanges

DeFi

$1.5T
$1T
$500B
$0
-$500B
-$1T
-$1.5T

Q3 2020

Q4 2020

Q1 2021

Q2 2021

Q3 2021

Q4 2021

Q1 2022

Q2 2022

We can see that in most quarters, North America’s activity changed at a greater rate than that
of the rest of the world, largely due to swings in DeFi usage. At times, the effect was enough for
North America’s transaction volume to move in the opposite direction of the rest of the world’s.
For instance, in Q2 2022, the rest of the world saw an uptick in overall transaction volume, led by
centralized services. North America also saw an uptick in activity on centralized services, but that
uptick was wiped out by a huge drop in DeFi activity. Overall, the data suggests that when the
market was strong in the second half of 2021 and money was pouring in, transaction volume grew
even more in North America because the region’s investors were more drawn to high-yield opportunities in DeFi. Likewise, during the market decline in 2022, North American investors were more eager
to pull back from a DeFi sector they perceived as risky, meaning activity fell further.

What’s next for North America?
Regardless of the volatility and risk in DeFi, the most prominent DeFi protocols have thus far survived
the bear market and continue to attract robust investment. The question now becomes: What will be
the next big new innovation in cryptocurrency? If previous trends hold, it’ll likely see greatest initial
adoption in North America and Western Europe.
It’s also possible that those new projects will be less speculative. Matt Van Buskirk told us more.
“With the drop in the market, we’re seeing more projects trying to tackle the real, infrastructural pain
points in the financial sector and elsewhere,” he said. “Mortgages, identity verification, tokenization
of physical assets — I think we’ll see blockchain-based primitives around those things.”

North America

18

Latin America

Latin America

19

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Latin America’s cryptocurrency activity
summarized
Cryptocurrency value received by Latin America
Compared to rest of world, July 2021 – June 2022

Latin America

9.3%

Rest of world
90.7%

Latin America: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022

$150B

$100B

$50B

Latin America

20

Regional transaction volume by transfer size, July 2021 – June 2022
Large institutional (>$10M)

Institutional ($1M-$10M)

Professional ($10k-$1M)

Large retail ($1k-$10k)

Small retail (<$1k)

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Total value received by region by type of service, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchange
P2P Exchange

Other

DeFi
Mixing

Gambling platform
Mining

Illicit

High-risk exchange
High-risk jurisdictions

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Latin America

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

21

Latin America’s key crypto adoption
drivers: storing value, sending
remittances, and seeking alpha
Latin America is the seventh largest cryptocurrency market we study this year, with citizens of Latin
American countries receiving $562.0 billion in crypto from July 2021 to June 2022. This represents a
40% growth over last year’s total. Latin America is also home to five of the top thirty countries in this
year’s crypto index: Brazil (7), Argentina (13), Colombia (15), Ecuador (18), and Mexico (28).
In our analysis of Latin America’s on-chain activity, we identified three key use-cases driving crypto
adoption:
• Storing value
• Sending remittances
• Seeking alpha
Let’s take a closer look at these three drivers – and the Latin American countries where each use case
is most prevalent.

Storing value
In April, the International Monetary Fund found that the combined inflation rate of the five largest
Latin America’s economies (or the “LA5”) – Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru – had surpassed
8% – a 15-year high. Four months later they updated this estimate to 12.1% – a 25-year high.
Meanwhile, in countries like Venezuela and Argentina, the state of affairs is even worse. These two
countries face year-on-year inflation rates of 114% and 79%, respectively, meaning that their fiat
currencies have lost around half of their value within the last twelve months.
The last time inflation reached such a height across Latin America, Bitcoin had not yet been
invented. While Bitcoin hasn’t yet proven to be the inflation hedge many believed it would be,
stablecoins – cryptocurrencies that are designed to stay pegged to the price of fiat currencies like
USD – are a favorite in the most inflation-ravaged countries in the region. In fact, recent survey
data suggests that more than a third of Latin American consumers already use stablecoins to make
everyday purchases.
Below, we discuss how citizens of the two of the most inflation-impacted Latin American countries
use stablecoins to modernize the way they save.

Latin America

22

Spotlight: Venezuela
Venezuela is unranked in this year’s index, as reliable and recent estimates of its PPP per capita were
unavailable. However, if we use the World Bank’s 2014 estimate as a proxy, Venezuela would rank
11th overall.
Given Venezuela’s sharp downturn in the eight years since and growing crypto adoption, they
could rank higher. Its national currency, the Bolivar, has depreciated by more than 100,000% from
December 2014 to September 2022. Venezuela is also, despite its incredible fiat currency devaluation,
still a growing crypto market in U.S. dollar terms. Last year, Venezuelans received $28.3 billion worth
of cryptocurrency. This year, they received $37.4 billion, up 32%.
Much of this transaction activity is stablecoin-related. 34% of all small retail transaction volume in
Venezuela consisted of stablecoin trades – more than any other country in Latin America. This aligns
well with the store-of-value thesis behind Venezuela’s grassroots adoption of crypto.
This economic precarity also helps explain Venezuelans’ affinity for play-to-earn blockchain games,
a few of which have (briefly) yielded economic returns that outpace Venezuela’s monthly minimum
wage. As a result, Venezuela has the second most Axie Infinity players of any country this year, right
after the Philippines, which placed 2nd in this year’s adoption index. Brazil, the next most active
Latin American play-to-earn community, has the fifth largest Axie Infinity playerbase.

Spotlight: Argentina
Argentina has had an inflation problem for much of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. During
the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, when the conflict was especially acute, Argentina’s
inflation rate briefly eclipsed 3,000%. For that reason, explained Rodolfo Andragnes, Founder of
ONG Bitcoin Argentina, “Argentinians have gotten used to buying U.S. dollars and literally storing
them under the mattress.” It’s also why almost every high-level purchase is paid for in USD. “To buy
a house, you go with 400,000 physical dollars, and you pay for the house. There are no 30 year loans
or anything like that.”
But Argentina’s government enforces strict capital controls that make it hard to accumulate savings.
Citizens with bank accounts can only swap enough Pesos at the official rate — 140 pesos per dollar
— to save $200 per month. And on the black market, where much of the country’s exchange trading is
actually done, the unofficial rate or ‘Dólar Blue’ is around 270 pesos per dollar. This has forced many
Argentinians to get creative about how they save.
One popular solution: stablecoins. Why? Because “psychologically, Argentinians are using crypto for
safety,” said Sebastian Serrano, CEO of Argentina-based crypto payments company Ripio. “That’s
why you see so much use of stablecoins — because it’s a good digital alternative to storing physical
dollars.”

Latin America

23

On-chain data suggests that this use-case is popular, especially in Venezuela and Argentina.

Share of small retail (<$1K) transaction volume made up of stablecoins, July 2021 – June 2022
40%

30%

34%
31%

stablecoin

28%
20%
19%
10%

0%

Venezuela

Argentina

Brazil

Mexico

More than 31% of Argentina’s small retail-sized crypto transaction volume comes from the sale of
stablecoins, compared to just 26% of Brazil’s and 18% of Mexico’s. These stablecoins – USDT, USDC,
and USDD especially – have become popular in Argentina for three simple reasons:
1. They are pegged to the U.S. Dollar, which is many Argentinians’ preferred currency;
2. They are digital, and therefore easy to access on multiple devices; and
3. There are no purchase limits, meaning that Argentinians can
convert any amount of pesos into stablecoins.
While Argentinians may not get a better fiat-to-stablecoin exchange rate than the dólar blue, it at
least engenders some sense of stability once converted.

An alternative economy – and community
One welcome byproduct of Argentina’s long-standing economic instability is that it has become
one of the most active communities in blockchain in all of Latin America. “We have a big amount
of people working in cryptocurrency and being paid in cryptocurrency, too,” said Andragnes. This is
especially true in Buenos Aires, where many of the crypto industry’s biggest players live and largest
events are held. MakerDAO and Chainlink, for example, each have a number of key developers
based in city, and LABITCONF, the largest bitcoin conference in Latin America, draws thousands of
attendees and speakers like Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, and Elizabeth Stark, the CEO
and co-founder of the Bitcoin Lightning Network, to Buenos Aires every year.

Latin America

24

Sending remittances
Remittance payments are also common throughout Latin America. Latin America’s formal remittance
market is estimated to reach $150 billion this year, and the adoption of crypto-based remittance
services has been uneven, but swift, throughout the region. El Salvador’s government-backed
payment app Chivo processed $52 million in Bitcoin remittances from January to May this year; and,
as we’ll explore below, crypto services have processed billions in remittances to Mexico as well.
Let’s take a closer look at what might currently be the world’s largest crypto remittance corridor: the
US-to-Mexico border.

Spotlight: Mexico
According to Felipe Vallejo, Chief Regulatory Officer at Bitso, the largest crypto exchange in Mexico,
a high percentage of families in Mexico’s lowest socioeconomic classes receive remittance payments
from family members abroad — and the crypto industry’s slice of that $51.6 billion market is rapidly
growing. Bitso alone has already processed more than $1 billion in US-to-Mexico remittances in 2022
as of June, representing a year-over-year growth rate of 400% and a grip on 4% of Mexico’s remittance market.
Coinbase is also giving traditional cross-border retail payment providers like Western Union a run for
their money. This February, Coinbase announced the launch of crypto cash-out services across 37,000
establishments in the country, including department stores, supermarkets, and all 20,000 branches of
Oxxo, Mexico’s largest chain of convenience stores.

Seeking alpha
Finally, we find that citizens of the largest and most advanced Latin American economies are more
likely to adopt cryptocurrency not just for savings, but for profit. As the below graph shows, the
LA5 hold the top six places in terms of DeFi’s share of total crypto activity. This means that in these
countries, large numbers of crypto users are engaging with permissionless protocols that enable
them to lend, trade, stake, and borrow tokens of all kinds – a speculative activity with significant risk
and upside potential.

Latin America

25

DeFi’s share of crypto transaction volume in top ten LATAM countries, June 2021- July 2022
50.0%

40.0%

30.0%

20.0%

10.0%

a
zu
ne
Ve

ep
.R
m
Do

el

.

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do
ua
Ec

a
Ar

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in

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Co

Ri
a
Co

bi

ca

ru
Pe

st

M

ex

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il
Br

az

ile
Ch

o

0.0%

Latin America’s more DeFi-centric crypto markets are not unlike Western Europe’s or North America’s,
where market participants are embracing cutting edge, returns-focused crypto platforms moreso
than savings-centric centralized services. Brazil is among the leaders in DeFi adoption in the region.

Spotlight: Brazil
According to Thomaz Fortes, the crypto lead at Nubank, one of the world’s largest digital banking
platforms that recently launched a crypto trading platform, the main use case for crypto in Brazil
right now is as a speculative investment. “Customers want a way to expand their earnings,” he
explained. “Interest rates at all-time lows in the country and strong price appreciation in cryptocurrency prices may have contributed, but the adoption continued strong even in the so-called crypto
winter.”
“The retail growth in the number of users in crypto has been much faster than in the equities market.
It took several years to get to several millions of equity investors,” Fortes observed. Nubank reached
1 million customers just one month after launching its crypto platform. “It’s not only institutional or
high-net-worth individuals. Democratizing access means a lot of retail adoption. Here at Nubank,
we developed the experience for trading cryptocurrencies so that we could break the barriers of
complexity common in niche crypto brokers.”
We can see some evidence of this retail adoption on-chain. Compared to other Latin American
countries, a higher share of Brazil’s transaction volume takes place in retail-sized increments. Trading
activity on Mercado Bitcoin, one of the largest Brazilian crypto exchanges, illuminates this trend.

Latin America

26

Share of activity by transfer size: Mercado Bitcoin (Brazil) vs. Rest of LATAM, July 2021 – June 2022
Mercado Bitcoin (Brazil)

Rest of LATAM

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

Large institutional

Institutional

Professional

Large retail

Small retail

As the above chart shows, small retail (<$1K), large retail ($1K-$10K), and professional ($10K-$1M)
sized transfers represent a much larger proportion of total trading volume on Mercado Bitcoin than
they do across the rest of Latin America.

A diversity of use cases
Overall, on-chain data and interviews with operators in the region show that Latin America has
embraced cryptocurrency for a diverse array of reasons depending on the unique needs of each
country. Users in countries with weaker economies tend to rely on cryptocurrency for remittances and,
if inflation is high, for savings preservation, while users in more developed markets like Brazil treat
cryptocurrency more as a speculative investment. As cryptocurrency evolves and the needs of Latin
American users shift, it’ll be interesting to see what use cases emerge to serve their needs.

Latin America

27

Central, Northern & Western Europe

Central, Northern, and Western Europe

28

Central, Northern & Western Europe’s
cryptocurrency activity summarized
Cryptocurrency value received by Central, Northern, and Western Europe
Compared to rest of world, July 2021 – June 2022

CNW Europe
21.9%

Rest of world
78.1%

Central, Northern, and Western Europe: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022

$250B
$200B
$150B
$100B

G

$0

U
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$50B

Central, Northern, and Western Europe

29

Regional transaction volume by transfer size, July 2021 – June 2022
Large institutional (>$10M)

Institutional ($1M-$10M)

Professional ($10k-$1M)

Large retail ($1k-$10k)

Small retail (<$1k)

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Total value received by region by type of service, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchange
P2P Exchange

Other

DeFi
Mixing

Gambling platform
Mining

Illicit

High-risk exchange
High-risk jurisdictions

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Central, Northern, and Western Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

30

Central, Northern & Western Europe
remains the world’s largest crypto
economy thanks to DeFi, NFTs, and
growing regulatory clarity
Central, Northern & Western Europe (CNWE) is once again the world’s largest crypto economy. Users
and institutions throughout the region received $1.3 trillion worth of cryptocurrency from July 2021
to June 2022, and Western Europe alone contained six of the 40 highest grassroots adopters of
cryptocurrency: The United Kingdom (17), Germany (21), France (32), Spain (34), Portugal (38), and
the Netherlands (39). DeFi drove a huge share of this activity, with EU regulations like the crypto
travel rule and MiCA licensing regime providing enhanced regulatory clarity.
In most of the ten largest crypto markets in CNWE, on-chain activity grew at a rate of 1-30% over
the preceding year. But two outliers stood out: Germany, whose activity grew by 47%, and the
Netherlands, whose activity shrank by 3%.

YoY growth in crypto transaction volume in top ten CNWE countries,
July 2020 – June 2021 vs. July 2021 – June 2022

Total value received, July ’21 – June ’22

$250B
United Kingdom

$200B

France

$150B
Netherlands
$100B

$50B

$0

Germany

Italy

Spain

Switzerland
Belgium Portugal

0%

Ireland

10%

20%

30%

40%

Percentage growth

Central, Northern, and Western Europe

31

Germany’s outsized growth was likely a byproduct of two recent decisions: (1) to enforce a 0%
long-term capital gains tax, and (2) to allow many different types of asset managers to invest in
cryptocurrencies. Chainalysis data suggests that these actions had the effect of encouraging both
retail and institutional adoption. Dutch regulators, by contrast, took a more cautious tone.
In smaller CNWE countries, changes in on-chain activity varied to a much greater extent. At the
poles are Estonia, whose activity leapt by 76%, and Malta, whose activity halved over the time
period studied.

YoY growth in crypto transaction volume in smaller CNWE countries,
July 2020 – June 2021 vs. July 2021 – June 2022

Total value received, July ’21 – June ’22

$40B

Finland

$30B
Norway

$20B

Ireland
Austria

Sweden

Greece

Denmark

Estonia

Slovenia
Lithuania

Croatia Serbia
Latvia

$10B

Luxembourg

Albania

Malta

Bosnia and Herzegovina
Iceland

Jersey

$0
-25%

0%

25%

50%

Macedonia
Montenegro

75%

Percentage growth

Central, Northern, and Western Europe

32

Malta faced increased competition from July 2021 to June 2022 as countries like the Bahamas
and Bermuda and jurisdictions like Abu Dhabi and Dubai ramped up their efforts to attract crypto
start-ups to their region. However, the “blockchain island” still has one of the most comprehensive
regulatory frameworks worldwide. Estonia, meanwhile, saw quick success in its ambition to become
a central European crypto hub, and in May 2022 turned its attention to reducing money laundering,
ransomware, and market contagion risks.

The United Kingdom is Europe’s biggest DeFi district
The United Kingdom ranked 17th in the Global Crypto Adoption Index this year, up from 21st the
year prior. And in terms of raw transaction volume, the United Kingdom is 1st in CNWE and 6th
worldwide, with $233 billion in cryptocurrency value received from July 2021 to June 2022.

Central, Northern, and Western Europe: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022

$250B
$200B
$150B
$100B

G

er

$0

UK
m
a
N Fra ny
et n
he ce
rla
n
Sp ds
ai
n
Sw I
itz tal
er y
Po lan
rt d
Be uga
lg l
iu
Ir m
el
a
Au nd
s
Sw tria
ed
Fi en
nl
a
N nd
o
De rwa
nm y
G ark
re
e
Es ce
to
Sl nia
ov
Li en
th ia
ua
Cr nia
oa
Se tia
rb
Lu La ia
xe tv
m ia
bo
An ur
do g
M
ac Alb rra
ed a
on nia
ia
,t
Bo M he
sn alt
M ia a
on a
te nd
ne
Ic gro
el
a
Je nd
G rse
ue y
rn
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y

$50B

A lot of this activity was DeFi related. Nearly 20% of the web traffic to both NFT and lending
contract-related websites across all of CNWE came from the UK in particular this year.
The UK’s crypto market was also unique in that it was the only top-five Western European country
that grew from July 2021 to June 2022 in terms of the raw number of on-chain transactions its
citizens engaged in each quarter.

Central, Northern, and Western Europe

33

Index: Quarterly growth in number of crypto transactions for top five CNWE countries,
July 2021 – June 2022
France

Germany

Netherlands

Spain

United Kingdom

200

150

100

50

0

Q3 2021

Q4 2021

Q1 2022

Q2 2022

This suggests that crypto adoption rates were more resilient in the United Kingdom than elsewhere in
CNWE. “I would like to think it’s because we’ve tried to provide certainty as far as crypto regulation
and taxation in the UK,” said Dion Seymour, a Crypto and Digital Assets Technical Director at
Andersen LLP and former Policy Advisor at HMRC, the UK’s tax authority. “No one wants crypto to
be taxed, but if there’s uncertainty about how it will be taxed, that can cause some level of consternation too.”
Another important barrier to crypto adoption that Seymour felt the UK is continuing to break down
is insufficient consumer protections. “Consumer protection absolutely needs to be considered if we
want DeFi to become mainstream. We will continue to see a lot of conversation among policymakers,
the World Bank, World Economic Forum, OECD, HMT, FCA, and obviously HMRC this year.”

NFTs drive DeFi activity throughout Central, Northern, and
Western European citizens
DeFi is popular elsewhere in CNWE as well, and NFT platforms lead the way, driving the most web
traffic of any other DeFi protocol type in the region. This is especially true in Ireland and Norway,
where traffic to NFT marketplaces accounts for more than 70% of all DeFi-related web traffic.

Central, Northern, and Western Europe

34

Blockchain gaming was the second-most highly visited DeFi category in CNWE, with France, Italy
and Spain leading the pack. In these three countries, more than 30% of web traffic was metaverse
related.
Heat map: Share of DeFi web traffic by platform type by country, July 2021 – June 2022

Web traffic data source: Similarweb

The cutting edge
In addition to being the world’s biggest cryptocurrency market, CNWE has always been on the
cutting edge of the cryptocurrency world — the region’s embrace of DeFi being a great example. As
new crypto technologies and use cases emerge, it remains to be seen if CNWE retains its status as an
early adopter.

Central, Northern, and Western Europe

35

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

36

Eastern Europe’s cryptocurrency activity
summarized
Cryptocurrency value received by Eastern Europe
Compared to rest of world, July 2021 – June 2022

Eastern Europe
10.4%

Rest of world
89.6%

Eastern Europe: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022
$250B

$200B

$150B

$100B

$50B

$0

Eastern Europe

Russia

Ukraine

Poland

Czech
Republic

Belarus

Bulgaria

Romania

Slovakia

Hungary

Moldova

37

Regional transaction volume by transfer size, July 2021 – June 2022
Large institutional (>$10M)

Institutional ($1M-$10M)

Professional ($10k-$1M)

Large retail ($1k-$10k)

Small retail (<$1k)

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Total value received by region by type of service, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchange
P2P Exchange

Other

DeFi
Mixing

Gambling platform
Mining

Illicit

High-risk exchange
High-risk jurisdictions

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Europe

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

38

Eastern Europe’s crypto market active,
with spikes in last year driven by
Russia-Ukraine War
Eastern Europe is the fifth-largest cryptocurrency market we study, with $630.9 billion in value
received on-chain between July 2021 and June 2022. That represents just over 10% of global transaction activity during the time period studied.

Share of all cryptocurrency transaction value received by region, March 2019 – June 2022
Central & Southern Asia and Oceania
Sub-Saharan Africa

Eastern Asia

Western Europe

Eastern Europe

Middle East & North Africa

Latin America
North America

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Q1
2019

Q2
2019

Q3
2019

Q4
2019

Q1
2020

Q2
2020

Q3
2020

Q4
2020

Q1
2021

Q2
2021

Q3
2021

Q4
2021

Q1
2022

Q2
2022

Eastern Europe’s comparative role in the bigger, worldwide crypto ecosystem has stayed surprisingly
consistent over the last few years, generally hovering around 10%. Other regions, on the other hand,
have seen more volatility.
In prior research, we’ve looked a lot at Eastern Europe’s role in cryptocurrency-based crime —
especially Russia. In particular, we’ve historically seen an outsized amount of ransomware and
crypto-based money laundering in Eastern Europe, with the latter supported by a large ecosystem
of risky cryptocurrency businesses. Some of those businesses, such as the OTC desk Suex, have even
been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in response to this activity over the last year.
Nevertheless, risky and illicit activity is still prominent when we look at Eastern Europe’s on-chain
activity: High-risk exchanges – those with no or low KYC requirements – account for 6.1% of trans-

Eastern Europe

39

action activity in the region, compared to just 1.2% for the next-closest region. In fact, if we combine
addresses associated with risky and illicit activity, we see that users in Eastern Europe interact with
them at a much higher rate than users in other regions.

Share of all cryptocurrency activity by region that is risky and illicit, July 2021 – June 2022
Risky

Illicit

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
Eastern Europe

Eastern Asia

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Latin America

Western Europe Central & Southern North America
Asia and Oceania

Middle East &
North Africa

Please note: Illicit transaction activity refers to transactions in which one or more counterparty addresses
is associated with a criminal entity. Risky activity refers to transactions in which one more counterparty
addresses is associated with a risky entity, such as a high-risk exchange or service headquartered in a
high-risk jurisdiction.

18.2% of all cryptocurrency received by Eastern Europe comes from addresses associated with risky or
illicit activity, more than any other region.

Market changes and crypto’s role in the Russia-Ukraine War
Of course, the biggest news in Eastern Europe this past year has been Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in
February 2022 and the subsequent, ongoing war. The war has affected virtually all aspects of life in
the two countries, and cryptocurrency is no exception.
Soon after the war began, the United States and several other countries began levying sanctions
against Russian oligarchs and other individuals connected to Vladimir Putin’s government. This,
combined with Russia’s historical embrace of cryptocurrency for both licit and illicit uses, prompted
questions of whether Russians would seek to use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions. Our research
showed that cryptocurrency markets likely aren’t liquid enough to support mass scale, systematic
sanctions evasion. Given that, plus this report’s focus on grassroots cryptocurrency adoption, we’re

Eastern Europe

40

going to use on-chain data to analyze how the general populace of both countries have turned to
cryptocurrency since the war began, rather than just the wealthy or those subject to sanctions.
After all, the war had a serious economic impact on citizens of both countries. Ukraine has seen
extremely high inflation, with a July New York Times article citing 90% increases in fuel costs and 35%
increases in food costs. Russia has also seen high inflation at times since the invasion, and has faced
difficulties in international commerce — in particular, exporting commodities like oil — due to its
removal from the SWIFT banking network. With that context in mind, let’s look at how Russian and
Ukrainian crypto usage changed as the war got underway. Right off the bat, we can see that both
countries saw an initial increase in cryptocurrency transfers in March 2022, soon after the war began
on February 24.

Eastern Europe: Monthly cryptocurrency transfers by country, July 2021 – June 2022
Belarus

Bulgaria

Czech Republic

Romania

Russia

Hungary
Slovakia

Moldova

Poland

Ukraine

3M

2M

1M

0
July 2021

Sept 2021

Nov 2021

Jan 2022

Mar 2022

May 2022

Trends diverge after that though. Russia saw transactions grow and shrink within a relatively narrow
range over the following months. Ukraine, on the other hand, saw a steady increase in cryptocurrency transfers from the outset of the war through June 2022. It’s possible that Russian users’
cryptocurrency activity was impacted by restrictions placed on them by many services in response to
the invasion.
Of course, given the economic issues faced by both countries, looking at transactions as a whole may
not be where we’d expect to find the most telling trends. Much of that transaction activity is made
up of crypto-to-crypto trades — in an emergency or potential hyperinflation scenario though, we’d
expect people to be more focused on protecting or moving their fiat assets. We can measure at least

Eastern Europe

41

some of this by looking at trade volume denominated in the Russian ruble and Ukrainian hryvnia,
using order book data for two exchanges that accept those currencies: Binance and LocalBitcoins.

Monthly UAH and RUB-denominated cryptocurrency trading activity, July 2021 – June 2022
UAH

RUB

$1B
$750M
$500M
$250M
$0

Jul
2021

Aug
2021

Sep
2021

Oct
2021

Nov
2021

Dec
2021

Jan
2022

Feb
2022

Mar
2022

Apr
2022

May
2022

Jun
2022

Jul
2022

Aug
2022

Source for exchange order book data: Kaiko

The trend here is even stronger, especially in March, immediately after the war began. That month,
Ukrainian hryvnia-denominated trade volume rose 121% to $307 million, while Russian ruble-denominated trade volume rose 35% to $805 million. After that, we see volumes drop off for both
countries, ebbing and flowing through August, but never reaching their March highs. The true scale
of this activity is also likely much higher than the totals we see above, as this data comes from just
two exchanges accepting both countries’ fiat currencies, but we can still draw conclusions from the
directional trends.
We showed our data to Tatiana Dmytrenko, a high-ranking adviser in Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance
and member of the World Economic Forum’s Digital Assets Task Force, and asked what use cases may
have accounted for the spikes in hryvnia-for-crypto trading. She cited currency controls implemented
by the Ukrainian government. “Due to the introduction of martial law in Ukraine, the Ukrainian
Central Bank imposed restrictions on currency cash transactions, such as buying dollars or euros,” she
said. Transfers of currency funds abroad were also restricted soon after that — Dmytrenko believes
some Ukrainians may have looked to exchange their hryvnia for cryptocurrency in response to these
measures. She also pointed out that these currency controls were relaxed in July 2022, at which point
we see hryvnia-for-crypto trading decline.
To learn more about similar activity in Russia, we spoke with a regional money laundering expert
who’s worked with financial intelligence units in Eastern Europe as well as several international
organizations. While he asked to remain anonymous, he gave us permission to quote him on how to
interpret this data in light of what he’s seen in Russia since the war began.

Eastern Europe

42

“The major question not just for oligarchs but also ordinary Russians became, ‘How do you get
money out of Russia?’” the expert said. “Many began looking for new places where they could cash
out their crypto.” He cited the UAE and Turkey as countries they have relied on in the past, and also
pointed to Kazakhstan and Georgia as countries that may have been able to absorb the increased
demand for such services once the war began. While this activity is difficult to quantify, web visits
from these countries to cryptocurrency services primarily serving Russian users could be one useful
proxy metric. All four countries saw spikes in web visits to Russian cryptocurrency services after the
war began in February, as seen in the chart below.

Index: Web traffic visits from select countries to predominantly Russian cryptocurrency services,
July 2021 – June 2022
Georgia

Kazakhstan

Turkey

United Arab Emirates

800

600

200

400

0
July 2021

Sept 2021

Nov 2021

Jan 2022

Mar 2022

May 2022

Web traffic data source: Similarweb

The expert also told us about the role that cryptocurrency could play in financing foreign trade for
Russia following its removal from SWIFT. Russia’s national bank recently agreed to legalize the use
of cryptocurrency for cross-border payments and international commerce, and the expert told us
that he suspects some Russian companies have already begun to execute these transactions. “This is
probably already happening on a small and medium scale, but it could become more widespread.”
This expert cited China and Iran as possible trading partners in such a scheme, noting that the
latter has initiated experiments with crypto-for-imports already. He also explained that stablecoins
would likely be the preferred medium of exchange for this use case given that they don’t see the
price volatility of assets like Bitcoin. Our data suggests that stablecoin usage in Russia has indeed
increased since the war began.

Eastern Europe

43

Share of transaction volume on predominantly Russian cryptocurrency services
by asset type, July 2021 – August 2022
BTC/WBTC

ETH/WETH

Altcoins

Stablecoins

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%
Jul 2021

Oct 2021

Jan 2022

Apr 2022

Jul 2022

In January, stablecoins made up 42% of transaction volume on primarily Russian services. That share
skyrocketed to 55% in February and 67% in March after the invasion. While some of that may be due
to businesses embracing cryptocurrency for international transactions, it’s also likely that some of
the increase is due to ordinary Russian citizens trading for stablecoins in order to protect their assets’
value, as we discussed previously.
Crypto-for-imports schemes would open up many questions about how to make sanctions against
countries like Russia more effective. However, one area where crypto has played an unambiguously
positive role during this war is in the donations we’ve seen to the Ukrainian cause. Since the
beginning of the war, cryptocurrency users have donated over $65 million in humanitarian aid,
showing the power cryptocurrency can have to unify people across borders in support of international causes.

Eastern Europe

44

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

45

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania’s
cryptocurrency activity summarized
Cryptocurrency value received by Central & Southern Asia and Oceania
Compared to rest of world, July 2021 – June 2022

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania
15.8%

Rest of world
84.2%

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022

$200,000,000,000

$150,000,000,000

$100,000,000,000

$50,000,000,000

Th

ai

In
di
a
la
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et
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st
r
Si
ng alia
Ph apo
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r
pp e
In ine
do s
ne
M sia
al
a
Pa ysia
Ka kis
za tan
kh
st
an
N
ew
Ir
Ze an
al
an
N d
e
Sr pa
i
Ba La l
ng nk
la a
Ca de
m sh
Uz bod
be ia
ki
st
an
L
Ky ao
rg s
yz
st
M
N
ew ya an
Fr
Ca nm
en
a
ch led r
Po on
i
ly a
ne
si
Br a
un
M
e
al i
d
Ta ive
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is
ta
n

$0

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

46

Regional transaction volume by transfer size, July 2021 – June 2022
Large institutional (>$10M)

Institutional ($1M-$10M)

Professional ($10k-$1M)

Large retail ($1k-$10k)

Small retail (<$1k)

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Total value received by region by type of service, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchange
P2P Exchange

Other

DeFi
Mixing

Gambling platform
Mining

Illicit

High-risk exchange
High-risk jurisdictions

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

47

Crypto adoption steadies in South Asia,
soars in the Southeast
Central & Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) is the third largest cryptocurrency market in our index
this year, with citizens of CSAO countries receiving $932 billion in cryptocurrency value from July
2021 to June 2022. CSAO is also home to seven of the top twenty countries in this year’s index:
Vietnam (1), the Philippines (2), India (4), Pakistan (6), Thailand (8), Nepal (16), and Indonesia (20).
Later in this section, we will analyze the main drivers of – and barriers to – grassroots cryptocurrency
adoption in these countries. But first, let’s look at CSAO in aggregate.

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022

$200,000,000,000

$150,000,000,000

$100,000,000,000

$50,000,000,000

et
n
Au am
st
r
Si
ng alia
Ph apo
ili
r
pp e
In ine
do s
ne
M sia
al
a
Pa ysia
Ka kis
za tan
kh
st
an
N
ew
Ir
Ze an
al
an
N d
e
Sr pa
i
Ba La l
ng nk
la a
Ca de
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Uz bod
be ia
ki
st
an
L
Ky ao
rg s
yz
st
M
N
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Fr
Ca nm
en
a
ch led r
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is
ta
n

nd

la

Vi

Th

ai

In

di

a

$0

India continues to lead CSAO in unweighted crypto activity, receiving $172 billion in cryptocurrency
value from July 2021 through June of this year. Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and Singapore follow
close behind with each receiving more than $100 billion received. Less engaged with cryptocurrencies, however, are Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Oceanian island nations like the
Maldives.

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

48

Total value received by region by type of service, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchange
P2P Exchange

Other

DeFi
Mixing

Gambling platform
Mining

Illicit

High-risk exchange
High-risk jurisdictions

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Like other regions, CSAO sees the majority of its crypto activity happen on centralized services.
Based on transaction volume, the region is in the middle of the pack when it comes to DeFi adoption.
But the data gets more interesting when we dig into what’s driving that DeFi adoption.
For instance, web traffic patterns suggest NFTs are perhaps the biggest on-ramp into DeFi for CSAO
today. 58% of DeFi-related web traffic from CSAO users in Q2 2022 was NFT related; another 21%
was to the websites of play-to-earn blockchain games.

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

49

CSAO quarterly share of activity by web traffic to DeFi services, July 2021 – June 2022
Air drop

Bridge
ICO

Decentralized exchange contract

Lending contract

NFT

Derivatives

Smart contract

Blockchain gaming and entertainment

Staking

Token smart contract

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%
Q1

19

20

Q2

19

20

Q3

19

20

Q4

19

20

Q1

20

20

Q2

20

20

Q3

20

20

Q4

20

20

Q1

21

20

Q2

21

20

Q3

21

20

Q4

21

20

Q1

22

20

Q2

22

20

Web traffic data source: Similarweb

Play-to-earn games and non-fungible tokens are intimately related. In most blockchain games
today, the in-game items are NFTs, like Axie pets in Axie Infinity and Sneakers in STEPN, which can
be resold on a number of different NFT marketplaces, like MagicEden and OpenSea. For countries
with high web traffic to NFT marketplaces – especially Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines – a
large portion of that NFT-related traffic may therefore come from players of blockchain games.

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

50

Heat map: Share of DeFi web traffic by platform type by country, July 2021 – June 2022

Web traffic data source: Similarweb

As the above heatmap shows, NFT-related websites account for a majority share of DeFi-related web
traffic in almost every CSAO country — but most of these same countries have their second-highest
share going to blockchain games and entertainment.
This is not necessarily surprising: CSAO is a hub for innovation in blockchain-based entertainment.
Game-centric blockchain developers Polygon and Immutable X are headquartered in India and
Australia, for example, and Axie Infinity and STEPN, the two largest play-to-earn games, are
operated in Vietnam and Australia, respectively.

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

51

This is not necessarily surprising: CSAO is a hub for innovation in blockchain-based entertainment.
Game-centric blockchain developers Polygon and Immutable X are headquartered in India and
Australia, for example, and Axie Infinity and STEPN, the two largest play-to-earn games, are
operated in Vietnam and Australia, respectively.
Traffic to websites related to subjects like decentralized exchange contracts, however, has declined in
recent quarters. This is likely connected to the bear market overall. Manan Vora, Senior Vice President
of Operations and Strategy at Liminal, a Singapore-based wallet infrastructure provider, found this
to be the case. “The UST crash played a big role in shaking the confidence of the crypto market.
When a top ten coin goes to zero, it becomes very difficult to get people who have just entered the
market to stay in the market. These are the users that you may lose forever.”
Now that we’ve looked at CSAO’s crypto markets at large, let’s zoom in on the most active countries
within the region.

Play-to-earn games and remittance payments drive rapid
adoption in Vietnam and the Philippines
For the second consecutive year, Vietnam ranked the highest in our cryptocurrency adoption index.
The Philippines, meanwhile, made a giant leap, jumping from 15th to second. Both of these countries
have similar growth drivers: play-to-earn (P2E) games and remittances.
The first of these, P2E games, we’ve already addressed in part above — but it’s worth noting the
sheer scale of P2E penetration in these two countries in particular. An estimated 25% of Filipinos and
23% of Vietnamese citizens have played a play-to-earn game, and at one point, players based in
the Philippines made up 40% of Axie Infinity’s playerbase. Meanwhile, Axie Infinity’s developer, Sky
Mavis, is based in Vietnam.
Vietnam and the Philippines are also massive remittance markets, with remittance inflows
accounting for 5% and 9.6% of their respective country-wide GDPs. In Manan Vora’s view, cryptocurrencies – especially stablecoins – help bridge the gap in cases where recipients don’t have access
to traditional banking channels and money transfer services like Western Union charge high fees.
“It makes a lot of sense. Why pay 3% to a banking intermediary and wait two days for the funds to
reach them when USDT/USDC can reach them within one minute, with almost zero fees?”
The same remittance thesis resonates for other CSAO countries as well. Pakistan, India, and
Bangladesh each have $20+ billion remittance markets, and blockchain-based payment providers
are beginning to disrupt traditional intermediaries. Some of these payment rails are even being built
in coordination with government agencies, such as the Pakistani central bank’s work with Alipay.
These transfers are generally made via stablecoins, so that the value being transferred is preserved in
transit.

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

52

Share of each top CSAO region’s crypto activity by asset type, July 2021 – June 2022
BTC/WBTC

ETH/WETH

Altcoins

Stablecoins

40.0%

30.0%

20.0%

10.0%

0.0%

Pakistan

India

Bangladesh

Vietnam

Philippines

As the graph above shows, stablecoins and ETH/WETH are the top two most actively traded asset
types in many CSAO countries – consistent with a remittance and NFT-centric adoption model.

Indian and Pakistani crypto regulations likely dampen
activity, but not the pace of innovation
In our 2021 crypto adoption index, we found that Indian and Pakistani citizens were the second and
third highest adopters of cryptocurrency globally, respectively. In 2022, they’ve fallen to fourth and
sixth. Recent regulatory developments may help explain why.

India
On April 1st, 2022, the Indian government implemented a 30% tax on all crypto gains, with no ability
for users to offset their losses. Then, on July 1st, the government also implemented a 1% transaction
deduction at source (TDS), meaning that crypto users must pay an additional 1% fee on every transaction. “This led to a lot of brain drain,” said Vora: “first to Singapore, and now to Dubai. … because
even if your business is market-making, it is now effectively being treated as a lottery business.”
Vikram Rangala, the Director of ZebPay, an Indian crypto exchange, helped us understand the
government’s perspective on these new rules. For them, he explained, it’s about consumer protection:

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

53

From the conversations I and my colleagues have had, people in the Indian government,
including members of parliament, aren’t anti-crypto per se. Some are very pro-crypto. But
they’re worried about their constituents trading a volatile asset without adequate information.
A 25-year-old saving to get married or provide for his family might trade some meme coin and
get wiped out. No public servant can be seen backing something that’s so risky for most people.
Rich people can survive such losses, but a house cleaner, farmer, or rickshaw driver cannot.
And in Rangala’s view, crypto innovation in India has continued unabated.

India has dozens of [crypto] projects working on establishing property rights, accessing tickets
and membership passes, helping rural artisans monetize, even giving token holders the chance
“to go skydiving with a movie star in Dubai,” and more.

Pakistan
In January this year, Pakistan’s central bank and government recommended a ban against cryptocurrencies. Since then, the federal government has formed three subcommittees to deliberate the matter
further, and to eventually propose their own crypto policies. It remains to be seen whether or not the
policies implemented will be as restrictive as the proposed ban.
Other issues further complicate Pakistani crypto adoption. The country has been on the Financial
Action Task Force’s (FATF) gray list since 2018, hurting its ability to get international financial aid
and hardening the government’s negative attitude towards cryptocurrencies. State Bank of Pakistan
(SBP) Governor Reza Baqir stated in February that the potential risks associated with cryptocurrencies “far outweigh the benefits,” and named the “widening gray economy” and “capital flight” as
key worries.
Given Pakistan’s current civil unrest – its former prime minister was recently charged under the
country’s antiterrorism act yet remains one of Pakistan’s most popular leaders – Baqir’s concerns
about crypto-based capital flight may prove prescient. Vikram Rangala suspects as much: “After
watching Venezuela and Argentina, I think that anybody who’s in a country where things are not
that stable, they’re starting to see cryptocurrency as a possibility.”

Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

54

Eastern Asia

Eastern Asia

55

Eastern Asia’s cryptocurrency activity
summarized
Cryptocurrency value received by Eastern Asia
Compared to rest of world, July 2021 – June 2022

Eastern Asia
12.9%

Rest of world
87.1%

Eastern Asia: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022
$250B

$200B

$150B

$100B

$50B

$0

Eastern Asia

China

South Korea

Japan

Taiwan

Hong Kong

Mongolia

Macao

56

Regional transaction volume by transfer size, July 2021 – June 2022
Large institutional (>$10M)

Institutional ($1M-$10M)

Professional ($10k-$1M)

Large retail ($1k-$10k)

Small retail (<$1k)

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Total value received by region by type of service, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchange
P2P Exchange

Other

DeFi
Mixing

Gambling platform
Mining

Illicit

High-risk exchange
High-risk jurisdictions

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

57

Cryptocurrency market growth in
Eastern Asia grinds to a halt, Chinese
market down but Not out following
government bans
Eastern Asia is the fourth-largest cryptocurrency market we study, having received $777.5 billion
worth of cryptocurrency between July 2021 and June 2022, representing just under 13% of global
transaction volume during that time period. Eastern Asia has lost ground to other regions this year,
having ranked as the third biggest region by transaction volume at the time of last year’s Geography
of Cryptocurrency Report. The region saw year-over-year transaction volume growth of just 4%, by
far the lowest of any region we analyze.

YoY growth in crypto transaction volume by region,
July 2020 – June 2021 vs. July 2021 – June 2022
50%
48%
40%

40%
36%

35%

30%

22%

20%

16%
10%

0%

15%

4%
Middle East &
North Africa

Latin
America

North
America

Central &
Southern
Asia

Eastern
Europe

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western
Europe

Eastern
Asia

The biggest reason for this is likely the declines in cryptocurrency activity in China, the largest
market in the region.

Eastern Asia

58

YoY growth in transaction volume for Eastern Asia countries,
July 2020 – June 2021 vs. July 2021 – June 2022
150%

100%

113.2%

72.4%

50%

13.2%

31.5%

14.5%

0%

9.5%
-31.1%

-50%

Japan

Mongolia

Taiwan

Macao

South Korea

Hong Kong

China

While it remains the biggest cryptocurrency market in the region, China saw its cryptocurrency
transaction volume fall by 31% compared to the previous year-long period, even as neighbors like
Japan more than doubled transaction volume. As we’ll explore in more detail later, this is likely due
to Chinese government crackdowns on cryptocurrency activity over the last year.
The data also shows that Eastern Asia has surprisingly low DeFi adoption. In fact, over the year-long
time period we study, DeFi made up just 28% of transaction volume in Eastern Asia, less than all but
one other region.

DeFi’s share of total transaction volume by region, July 2021 – June 2022
50%
40%
30%

43.3%
35.2%

33.2%
28%

20%

27.3%

37.2%

40.7%

29.7%

10%
0%

Eastern Asia

Central &
Eastern Asia
Southern Asia
and Oceania

Eastern
Europe

Latin
America

Middle East &
North Africa

North
America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western
Europe

59

Below, we’ll explore these trends and more as we dive into what makes Eastern Asia’s
crypto market tick.

DeFi drives outsized growth in Japan
As we noted above, Japan’s cryptocurrency market has grown substantially over the year-long period
studied, with on-chain transaction volume increasing 113.2% over the previous 12 months, compared
to 72.4% for the next-closest country (Mongolia), 13.2% for South Korea, and a 31.1% contraction for
China. Why might this be? One reason could be Japan’s comparatively high embrace of DeFi.

Total CeFi and DeFi value received by country in Eastern Asia, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchanges

DeFi

$200B

$150B

$100B

$50B

$0B

China

South Korea

Japan

Taiwan

Hong Kong

Mongolia

Macao

Despite having a smaller overall cryptocurrency market, Japan’s DeFi transaction volume is nearly
double the size of South Korea’s at $56.7 billion, and close to China’s total of $67.6 billion. We spoke
to Chainalysis’ Tokyo-based Advisory Solutions Architect Hayato Shigekawa to learn more. “DEX
trading has become very popular in Japan,” said Hayato, citing the importance of platforms like
Uniswap, 1inch, and TokenIon in the country. He also discussed the popularity of NFTs in Japan, and
the possibility of their future growth. “Many have pointed out that Japan has lots of quality IP from
anime, comics, and video games, which could be utilized in Web3 in the future.” Chainalysis data
confirms that these services have played a big role in Japan’s DeFi market.

Eastern Asia

60

Share of value received by Japan at DeFi protocols by protocol type, July 2021 – June 2022
Token smart contract
DEX

Staking

Bridge

Air drop

Smart contract
NFT

ICO

Gaming and entertainment

Lending contract

Derivatives

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%

Jul 2021

Aug 2021

Sep 2021

Oct 2021

Nov 2021

Dec 2021

Jan 2022

Feb 2022

Mar 2022

Apr 2022

May 2022

Jun 2022

Interestingly, off-chain spot trading data released by the ​​Japan Virtual and Crypto assets Exchanges
Association (JVCEA) suggests that DEX trading may be eating into trading on centralized services,
which haven’t seen similar growth. Reported trade volume on Japanese exchanges is lower than it
was in 2020 and 2021, while year-over-year creation of new accounts is between 30% and 40% in
most months. One reason trading volume has shifted from centralized exchanges to DEXes could be
the latter’s greater number of assets on offer. “Centralized exchanges in Japan support roughly 60
crypto assets, and the process to list new coins is lengthy and rightly regulated,” said Hayato. Hayato
also pointed out that as of now, that list of available crypto assets includes no stablecoins. Given
that, it’ll be interesting to see how Japan’s usage of DeFi changes as regulations evolve.

China’s market remains among world’s strongest despite
government bans
As we discussed above, China has seen a large dropoff in cryptocurrency activity, likely due to
government crackdowns. The Chinese government started by banning mining in May 2021, and by
September moved further to ban all cryptocurrency transaction activity. “Virtual currency-related
business activities are illegal financial activities,” the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in an
unambiguous statement.
Still, despite a 31.1% dropoff in transaction volume, China remains the biggest cryptocurrency market
in the region, the fourth overall in the world, and ranked tenth for grassroots adoption on our Global
Crypto Adoption Index. Plus, trading activity has even begun to pick back up in recent months. That
hardly seems to reflect the total ban that was announced, or the harsh words from PBOC officials
that came along with it.

Eastern Asia

61

Monthly cryptocurrency value received by China, March 2019 – June 2022
$100B
$75B
$50B
$25B

M

ar
Ap 20
r 19
M 20
ay 19
Ju 20
n 19
2
J u 01
l 9
Au 20
g 19
Se 20
p 19
2
O 01
ct 9
N 20
ov 1
9
De 20
c 19
2
J a 01
n 9
Fe 20
b 20
M 202
ar 0
Ap 20
r 20
M 20
ay 20
Ju 20
n 20
2
J u 02
l 0
Au 20
g 20
Se 20
p 20
2
O 02
ct 0
N 20
ov 2
0
De 20
c 20
Ja 202
n 0
Fe 20
b 21
M 202
ar 1
Ap 20
r 21
M 20
ay 21
Ju 20
n 21
2
J u 02
l 1
Au 20
g 21
Se 20
p 21
2
O 02
ct 1
N 20
ov 2
1
De 20
c 21
Ja 202
n 1
Fe 20
b 22
M 202
ar 2
Ap 20
r 22
M 20
ay 22
Ju 20
n 22
20
22

$0

Even mining, which was the first crypto activity targeted by the Chinese government and saw a huge
dropoff following the ban, has made a comeback in China. That’s especially surprising given that
you’d expect it to be easier for the government to pinpoint the increased power usage indicative of
mining and take action.

Bitcoin mining hashrate by country, January 2021 – January 2022
Canada

Ireland

Germany
United States

Iran

Malaysia

China

Kazakhstan

Russia

Other

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Jan 2021

Apr 2021

Jul 2021

Oct 2021

Source: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

Eastern Asia

62

The data suggests that in China, the anti-establishment ethos of cryptocurrency’s early days remains
intact. While government crackdowns have clearly had an effect, China’s cryptocurrency market
remains strong, with healthy transaction volumes across both centralized and DeFi services.

Eastern Asia

63

Middle East & North Africa

Middle East & North Africa

64

Middle East & North Africa’s
cryptocurrency activity summarized
Cryptocurrency value received by Middle East & North Africa
Compared to rest of world, July 2021 – June 2022

Middle East & North Africa
9.0%

Rest of world
91.0%

Middle East & North Africa: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022
$200B

$150B

$100B

$50B

Tu
Le rke
Sa ba y
ud no
iA n
ra
bi
a
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yp
t
U
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or
oc
co
Ir
an
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G aq
eo
rg
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ge
ri
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m l
en
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ni
s
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pr
u
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$0

Middle East & North Africa

65

Regional transaction volume by transfer size, July 2021 – June 2022
Large institutional (>$10M)

Institutional ($1M-$10M)

Professional ($10k-$1M)

Large retail ($1k-$10k)

Small retail (<$1k)

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Total value received by region by type of service, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchange
P2P Exchange

Other

DeFi
Mixing

Gambling platform
Mining

Illicit

High-risk exchange
High-risk jurisdictions

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Middle East & North Africa

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

66

Middle East & North Africa’s crypto
markets grow more than any other
region in 2022
Middle East & North Africa (MENA) may be one of the smaller crypto markets in the 2022 Global
Crypto Adoption Index, but it’s also the fastest growing. MENA-based users received $566 billion in
cryptocurrency from July 2021 to June 2022, 48% more than they received the year prior.

YoY growth in crypto transaction volume by region, July 2020 – June 2021 vs. July 2021 – June 2022
50%
48%
40%

40%
36%

35%

30%

22%

20%

16%
10%

15%

4%

0%
Middle East &
North Africa

Latin America

North America

Central &
Southern Asia

Eastern Europe

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Eastern Asia

MENA is also home to three of the top thirty countries in this year’s index: Turkey (12), Egypt (14),
and Morocco (24). Use cases around savings preservation and remittance payments as well as increasingly permissive crypto regulations help explain why.
In Turkey and Egypt, fluctuating cryptocurrency prices have coincided with rapid fiat currency devaluations, strengthening the appeal of crypto for savings preservation. The Turkish Lira has inflated
by 80.5% in the last year; the Egyptian Pound has weakened by 13.5%. Also significant, however, is
Egypt’s remittance market. Remittance payments account for about 8% of Egypt’s GDP, and the country’s national bank has already begun a project to build a crypto-based remittance corridor between
Egypt and the UAE, where many Egyptian natives work.

Middle East & North Africa

67

Egypt’s position at the intersection of growing crypto remittances and increased inflationary pressures help explain why it’s the fastest growing crypto market in all of MENA this year. Between July
2021 and June 2022, transaction volume in Egypt tripled compared to the preceding year. Turkey,
meanwhile, remains the largest cryptocurrency market in the region, its citizens having received $192
billion from July 2021 to June 2022, but has seen much slower YoY growth.

MENA countries by YoY growth in crypto transaction volume, July 2020 – June 2021 vs. July 2021 – June 2022

250%

200%

221.7%
194.8%

150%

120.9%

100%

120.8%

50%
37.2%
0%

Egypt

Saudi Arabia

Lebanon

Morocco

United Arab
Emirates

10.5%
Turkey

In Morocco, inflation rates have been contained to a more manageable 5.3%. In fact, the North African country’s notable levels of grassroots adoption seem to be more tied to the government’s newly
permissive crypto stance than to any particular macroeconomic tailwinds. In 2017, the central bank
of Morocco declared that “penalties and fines” will follow any crypto transaction within the country.
But earlier this year, it struck a partnership with the IMF and the World Bank to create crypto regulations that emphasize innovation and consumer protection.

The Gulf Cooperation Council and the rise of institutional
crypto in MENA
As key business hubs of the MENA region, the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
– Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman – seldom make it to
the top of our grassroots crypto adoption index, as it weighs countries by purchasing power parity
per capita, which favors poorer nations. Nevertheless, their role in the crypto ecosystem should not
be underestimated. Saudi Arabia, for example, is the third-largest crypto market in all of MENA, and
UAE is fifth. They also have deep ties to the global crypto markets: in our Sub-saharan Africa and

Middle East & North Africa

68

Central & Southern Asia sections, we find that Dubai has become a hub for crypto companies that
serve customers all across Asia and Africa, not just in the Middle East.

Middle East & North Africa: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022
$200B

$150B

$100B

$50B

Tu
Le rke
Sa ba y
ud no
iA n
ra
bi
a
Eg
yp
t
U
M AE
or
oc
co
Ir
an
Ir
G aq
eo
rg
Al ia
ge
ri
Is a
r
Ar ae
m l
en
Tu ia
ni
s
Cy ia
pr
u
Jo s
rd
a
K n
Az uw
er ait
ba
ija
Q n
at
O ar
Pa ma
le n
st
in
Ye e
m
Ba en
hr
ai
n
Li
by
a
Af
gh Syr
an ia
is
ta
n

$0

As Akos Erzse, Head of Public Policy at the Dubai-based crypto exchange BitOasis, explained, the
main drivers of crypto adoption in the GCC are different from those in the rest of MENA. “When
you look at markets in the GCC, we take the view that this adoption is driven by young, tech-savvy
early adopters with relatively high disposable incomes, that are, you know, searching for investment
options, and have a conviction in crypto right now.” Moreover, adoption is “not just on the retail or
customer side, but also in the ecosystem, with financial institutions and banks beginning to work
with businesses like us.” Erzse also emphasized the role that recent inflation has played in pushing
cryptocurrency adoption.

The Taliban’s crackdown brings Afghanistan’s crypto markets
to a standstill
One former MENA leader in grassroots crypto adoption has since had a major downturn:
Afghanistan.
Afghanistan placed 20th in our 2021 crypto adoption index, but since the Taliban’s takeover last
August, has fallen to the bottom of the list. Under the Taliban’s rule, dozens of crypto dealers have
been arrested, and the ruling state agency, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the
Prevention of Vice, has equated cryptocurrency to gambling and declared it haram.

Middle East & North Africa

69

We find that in August and September – right after the Taliban’s takeover – Afghanistan’s on-chain
activity spiked to a temporary high before taking an unprecedented nosedive. From November 2021
to today, the on-chain value received by users based in Afghanistan has averaged less than $80,000
a month, a far cry from the $68 million its citizens received in the average month preceding the
takeover.

Monthly cryptocurrency value received in Afghanistan, July 2021 – June 2022
$200M

$150M

$100M

$50M

$0

Jul
2021

Aug
2021

Sep
2021

Oct
2021

Nov
2021

Dec
2021

Jan
2022

Feb
2022

Mar
2022

Apr
2022

May
2022

Jun
2022

The Taliban’s crackdown has had a massive chilling effect on the country’s crypto markets. Under
current conditions, crypto dealers are left with three options: flee the country, cease operations, or
risk arrest.
As for how much of the ceased and continued crypto activity was and is legitimate versus illicit, an
anonymous source familiar with the Afghani cryptocurrency market said, “A small portion of that
[continued activity] is just young people who have a few hundred bucks [available to day trade].
But I would say most of it, the only use I’ve seen is money laundering, where the source of the money
is illegal. A lot of it is either bribes or drug money.”
As our source explained, it’s not that crypto can’t eventually be a net positive for the region – a way
to bank the unbanked, act as a store of value, or become a means of payment. The problem is that
it’s exceptionally hard to implement, especially given Afghanistan’s small number of smartphone
users and sparse cellular networks.

Middle East & North Africa

70

[Afghanistan] has been through so much that I can use US dollars almost anywhere. Even if
it’s a cart on the side of the road, selling potatoes, I am 100% confident that they will take
my dollar. They will not give me change in dollars, but they will always accept it, because their
understanding of the volatility of currency is there. A crypto solution, it could work, but the
obstacles are always overlooked when there is an initiative being planned. … There is such a
difference between the plan and the reality that usually it just never works out.
Future crypto initiatives seem highly unlikely to be attempted, let alone implemented, under the
current Taliban regime, but those who manage to acquire cryptocurrency clandestinely may be able
to insulate themselves from any future economic shocks, as we’ve seen in other countries.

Middle East & North Africa

71

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

72

Sub-Saharan Africa’s cryptocurrency
activity summarized
Cryptocurrency value received by Sub-Saharan Africa
Compared to rest of world, July 2021 – June 2022

Sub-Saharan Africa
1.7%

Rest of world
98.3%

Sub-Saharan Africa: Countries by cryptocurrency value received, July 2021 – June 2022

$30B

$20B

$10B

So
u

th
A
N fric
ig a
er
Ke ia
M nya
a
Se urit
yc iu
he s
l
G les
Cô ha
te na
d’
Ré Ivo
un ire
io
Be n
n
Et in
Ta Mo hio
nz za pi
an m a
ia biq
,U u
Ca ni e
m ted
er
Se oo
ne n
g
An al
Zi go
m la
ba
bw
To e
Ug go
an
Co da
n
N go
M am
ad ib
ag ia
as
ca
r
Rw Ma
li
a
Bo nd
ts a
w
a
G na
ab
So on
m
a
Za lia
m
b
Bu Co ia
rk ng
in o
a
F
M aso
Ca al
bo aw
Ve i
rd
e

$0.00

Sub-Saharan Africa

73

Regional transaction volume by transfer size, July 2021 – June 2022
Large institutional (>$10M)

Institutional ($1M-$10M)

Professional ($10k-$1M)

Large retail ($1k-$10k)

Small retail (<$1k)

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Total value received by region by type of service, July 2021 – June 2022
Centralized exchange
P2P Exchange

Other

DeFi
Mixing

Gambling platform
Mining

Illicit

High-risk exchange
High-risk jurisdictions

100%

75%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Sub-Saharan Africa

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

74

How cryptocurrency meets residents’
economic needs in Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-saharan Africa accounts for the least cryptocurrency transaction volume of any region we study,
with $100.6 billion in on-chain volume received between July 2021 and June 2022, which represents
2% of global activity, and 16% growth over the year prior.

Quarterly share of all cryptocurrency transaction value received by region, Q1 2019 – Q2 2022
Central & Southern Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East & North Africa

North America

Western Europe

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Q1

19

20

Q2

19

20

Q3

19

20

Q4

19

20

Q1

20

20

Q2

20

20

Q3

20

20

Q4

20

20

Q1

21

20

Q2

21

20

Q3

21

20

Q4

21

20

Q1

22

20

Q2

22

20

However, numbers can be deceiving, as deeper analysis reveals that Africa contains some of the
most well-developed cryptocurrency markets of any region, with deep penetration and integration of
cryptocurrency into everyday financial activity for many users. We see this primarily in Nigeria and
Kenya, which rank 11th and 19th on our Global Crypto Adoption Index respectively. Both countries
see strong adoption when weighted for purchasing power and population, especially on P2P
exchanges, which expert interviews confirm are crucial to the region’s crypto economy. South Africa,
which leads the region in raw transaction volume, also ranks high on our index at 30th.

Sub-Saharan Africa

75

Small retail transactions power crypto markets in
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa’s retail market and outsized usage of P2P platforms make it unique compared to
other regions. Retail-sized transfers below $10,000 USD make up 6.4% of its transaction volume, more
than any other region. The role of retail becomes even more apparent when we look at the number
of individual transfers. Retail transfers make up 95% of all transfers, and if we drill down to just small
retail transfers under $1,000, the share becomes 80%, more than any other region.

Small retail (<$10K) share of all transfers by region, July 2021 – June 2022
100%

75%

73.5%

74.1%

75.6%

74.3%

66.1%

80.1%
70.5%

70.5%

50%

25%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

Our interviews suggest that this reflects the trend of many young people in Sub-Saharan Africa
turning to cryptocurrency as a way to preserve and build wealth in spite of low economic opportunity, as opposed to other countries where we see many using cryptocurrency as a way to multiply
their existing wealth. Adedeji Owonibi, founder of Nigeria-based blockchain consultancy and product
studio Convexity, told us more about this dynamic. “We see a lot of daily traders who are trading to
make ends meet,” he said. “We don’t have big, institutional-level traders in Sub-Saharan Africa. The
people driving the market here are retail. Nigeria has a ton of highly educated young graduates with
high unemployment rates, no jobs available — crypto to them is a rescue. It’s a way to feed their
family and solve their daily financial needs.” According to Deji, the volatility of the Nigerian naira
also drives the need for cryptocurrency in the country, as users believe they can better preserve their
savings with stablecoins like Tether.
Crypto usage driven by everyday necessity, as opposed to speculation by the already-well off, could
explain an interesting phenomenon we saw in Sub-Saharan Africa this year: The number of small
retail transfers actually grew starting at the onset of the bear market in May, while the number of
transfers of other sizes fell.

Sub-Saharan Africa

76

Index: Growth in number of transfers by transfer size in Sub-Saharan Africa, January 2022 – June 2022
Large institutional (>$10M)

Institutional ($1M-$10M)

Large retail ($1k-$10k)

Professional ($10k-$1M)

Small retail (<$1k)

125

100

75

50

25

0
Jan 2022

Feb 2022

Mar 2022

Apr 2022

May 2022

If many of the people carrying out small retail transactions are trading cryptocurrency out of
economic necessity — especially in countries where the values of local fiat currencies are dropping, as
we’ve seen in Nigeria and Kenya, for example — then those people may be more willing to continue
trading despite price drops. And of course, users buying stablecoins like Tether would be unaffected
by drops in prices for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the like.

P2P exchanges are a crucial part of the ecosystem
We also see heavy adoption of P2P exchanges. P2P exchanges account for 6% of all cryptocurrency
transaction volume in Africa, more than double the share of the next-closest region, Central &
Southern Asia and Oceania.

Sub-Saharan Africa

77

P2P exchanges’ share of all cryptocurrency transaction volume by region, July 2021 – June 2022
8%

6%

6.0%
4%

2%

3.1%
0.3%

0.5%

1.7%

0.6%

Eastern Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America

Middle East &
North Africa

0.7%

0.6%

0%
Central & Southern
Asia and Oceania

North America

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Western Europe

We spoke with Ray Youssef, CEO of popular P2P platforms Paxful, to understand why. According to
Ray, Sub-Saharan Africa is a major growth driver for Paxful, with 55% year-over-year user growth
of remittance users in Nigeria — already Paxful’s biggest market — and nearly a whopping 140% in
Kenya. He explained to us how P2P platforms like Paxful initially took hold in Africa as some of the
first services residents could use to buy cryptocurrency. “We had to get Bitcoin into Africa, which
was difficult because it’s so hard to get money out of Africa. We needed a clever hack to make that
happen,” said Ray. That hack ended up being gift cards. “We connected Nigerians with Chinese
gamers who wanted to buy app store gift cards, and a huge trade market was born. That got Bitcoin
into Nigeria, and then the rest of Western Africa.” Strategies like the one Ray described allowed P2P
platforms to drive early Bitcoin activity in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the services have proved to have
staying power in the region.
Regulations limiting crypto activity can also drive P2P exchange usage. The Nigerian government
prohibited banks from transacting with cryptocurrency businesses in 2021, and while this action
doesn’t appear to have dampened overall cryptocurrency transaction volumes, it has affected usage
patterns. We spoke to an analyst at Nigeria’s Financial Intelligence Unit to learn more. “Nigeria
restricted the usage of the Naira for buying crypto in 2021 due to concerns around scams and tax
evasion, and because of that, many people began trading peer-to-peer,” the analyst told us.
That activity goes beyond conventional P2P platforms like Paxful though. Many in Nigeria are
also trading cryptocurrency directly with one another, sourcing deals through group chats on apps
like WhatsApp and Telegram. Our geographic data doesn’t reflect this activity since it takes place
through private wallet interactions, but our interviewees described it as a big part of Nigeria’s
cryptocurrency ecosystem. Adedeji Owonibi told us more. “These groups have thousands of people
from all over the world — Nigeria, China, Dubai and more — trading crypto with each other,” he said.
“The groups are where the volume is happening.”

Sub-Saharan Africa

78

Commerce and remittances also power crypto adoption in
Sub-Saharan Africa
In addition to trading and saving, Ray and Deji told us about two other use cases powering crypto
adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa: remittances and commerce.
Remittances from overseas have long been important for Sub-Saharan African economies, and
inflows to the region grew 14.1% to $49 billion in 2021 following a decline the previous year.
However, these payments can be expensive and difficult to make. Ray Youssef explained more.
“Making an international payment in a country like Nigeria, Cameroon, or Senegal is almost impossible. There’s no pan-African payment solution. There are thousands of payment networks in Africa,
and only a fraction of them talk to each other,” he told us. Ray described one Kenyan expat he knew
who had to pay €200 for every €1,000 she tried to send home from Europe. Ray was able to help
that woman use Paxful to buy Bitcoin, sell it to another user for Kenyan shillings via M-PESA, a
Kenyan payments network, which the woman could then transfer directly to her family. “She actually
ended up making a 4% profit rather than paying 20% in fees because the user she transacted with
was willing to pay a premium for the Bitcoin,” said Ray.
Commercial transactions are another use case. Adedeji Owonibi told us that many businesses relying
on international suppliers have turned to crypto for payments, as sending funds abroad is difficult
due to Nigeria’s tight capital controls. “Companies need to buy materials from the United States, but
there’s no way to get the money there — they’re left with no option but to use USDT.” He cited China
as another popular trading partner for these crypto-based commercial transactions.

Future growth in Sub-Saharan Africa
What countries will power the next round of growth for Sub-Saharan Africa? Ray pointed to Ghana
as one place that he expects to achieve similar adoption levels to Nigeria and Kenya, based on
current growth trends and the needs of the local population. “Lots of Nigerians consider Ghana their
summer home and spend lots of time there, and they’re educating the locals on Bitcoin,” said Ray.
He told us that over the last year, Paxful’s total trade volume in Ghana has grown by nearly 100% in
the last year and over 400% in the last two years. That aligns with data we’ve found showing that
Ghana – along with several other Sub-Saharan African countries – has seen substantial.

Sub-Saharan Africa

79

Index: Growth in quarterly web traffic to cryptocurrency sites by country, Q1 2019 – Q2 2022
Cameroon

Ghana

Kenya

Nigeria

South Africa

3,000

2,000

1,000

0

Q1
2019

Q2
2019

Q3
2019

Q4
2019

Q1
2020

Q2
2020

Q3
2020

Q4
2020

Q1
2021

Q2
2021

Q3
2021

Q4
2021

Q1
2022

Q2
2022

Web traffic data source: Similarweb

Overall, we expect cryptocurrency usage in Sub-Saharan Africa to continue growing as long as
residents face issues crypto has proven it can solve for them, such as preserving savings through
economic volatility and enabling cross-border transactions in places with strict capital controls.

Sub-Saharan Africa

80

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index:
The Full List

2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List

81

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List
Rankings for individual sub-metrics feeding into Global Crypto Adoption Index
Country

Overall
index
ranking

Centralized
service value
received ranking

Retail centralized
service value
received ranking

P2P
exchange
trade
volume
ranking

Defi value
rreceived
ranking

Retail DeFi
value received
ranking

Vietnam

1

5

5

2

7

6

Philippines

2

4

4

66

13

5

Ukraine

3

6

6

39

10

14

India

4

1

1

82

1

1

United States

5

3

3

111

3

2

Pakistan

6

10

10

50

22

16

Brazil

7

7

7

113

8

7

Thailand

8

12

12

61

5

3

Russia

9

8

8

109

11

12

China

10

2

2

144

6

4

Nigeria

11

18

18

17

20

17

Turkey

12

9

9

121

19

15

Argentina

13

13

13

26

21

25

Morocco

14

19

19

21

33

18

Colombia

15

23

23

10

27

29

Nepal

16

17

17

19

34

41

United Kingdom

17

14

14

71

12

11

Ecuador

18

37

37

6

45

56

Kenya

19

43

43

5

9

34

Indonesia

20

16

16

129

18

13

Germany

21

22

22

114

15

10

2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List

82

Rankings for individual sub-metrics feeding into Global Crypto Adoption Index
Country

Overall
index
ranking

Centralized
service value
received ranking

Retail centralized
service value
received ranking

P2P
exchange
trade
volume
ranking

Defi value
rreceived
ranking

Retail DeFi
value received
ranking

Canada

22

28

28

96

14

8

South Korea

23

11

11

141

28

22

Egypt

24

15

15

110

57

47

Belarus

25

31

31

29

43

57

Japan

26

20

20

143

17

9

Cambodia

27

38

38

28

29

23

Mexico

28

21

21

122

23

19

Malaysia

29

42

42

31

38

32

South Africa

30

29

29

81

41

31

Palestine

31

45

45

15

94

93

France

32

26

26

101

16

20

Poland

33

25

25

102

32

30

Spain

34

27

27

99

24

26

Peru

35

39

39

45

39

50

Bangladesh

36

30

30

92

48

39

Georgia

37

47

47

33

53

52

Portugal

38

51

51

24

40

36

Netherlands

39

41

41

69

26

24

Australia

40

40

40

90

25

21

Moldova

41

49

49

27

72

88

Bolivia

42

54

54

20

93

91

2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List

83

Rankings for individual sub-metrics feeding into Global Crypto Adoption Index
Country

Overall
index
ranking

Centralized
service value
received ranking

Retail centralized
service value
received ranking

P2P
exchange
trade
volume
ranking

Defi value
rreceived
ranking

Retail DeFi
value received
ranking

Dominican
Republic

43

64

64

13

87

74

Somalia

44

75

75

7

131

128

Algeria

45

34

34

100

50

43

Hong Kong

46

50

50

52

35

33

Tanzania

47

81

81

9

61

42

Bulgaria

48

48

48

54

42

44

Ghana

49

66

66

14

68

58

Tunisia

50

63

63

22

64

68

Italy

51

32

32

132

30

27

Iraq

52

24

24

130

98

101

Taiwan

53

33

33

124

31

35

Jamaica

54

97

97

4

100

98

El Salvador

55

61

61

36

89

83

Chile

56

58

58

53

37

40

Côte d’Ivoire

57

76

76

23

78

64

Sri Lanka

58

59

59

48

54

63

Serbia

59

67

67

34

75

60

Mozambique

60

36

36

125

63

62

Kazakhstan

61

44

44

115

73

59

Czech Republic

62

52

52

89

44

48

Singapore

63

55

55

80

47

51

Ethiopia

64

62

62

67

66

46

2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List

84

Rankings for individual sub-metrics feeding into Global Crypto Adoption Index
Country

Overall
index
ranking

Centralized
service value
received ranking

Retail centralized
service value
received ranking

P2P
exchange
trade
volume
ranking

Defi value
rreceived
ranking

Retail DeFi
value received
ranking

Costa Rica

65

86

86

16

84

80

Switzerland

66

57

57

76

36

38

Saudi Arabia

67

35

35

133

91

81

Jordan

68

60

60

68

88

78

Guatemala

69

65

65

57

111

107

Belize

70

106

106

8

109

71

Seychelles

71

123

123

1

110

114

Zimbabwe

72

69

69

47

117

119

Myanmar

73

53

53

103

95

89

Cameroon

74

102

102

12

79

102

Armenia

75

72

72

70

49

45

Romania

76

56

56

118

55

49

Kyrgyzstan

77

73

73

84

51

37

Sweden

78

85

85

44

62

67

Democratic
Republic of the
Congo

79

80

80

98

46

28

Slovakia

80

70

70

95

70

69

Rwanda

81

103

103

18

107

108

Estonia

82

95

95

38

60

75

Uruguay

83

96

96

32

114

118

Mongolia

84

77

77

87

71

70

Greece

85

68

68

117

59

53

2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List

85

Rankings for individual sub-metrics feeding into Global Crypto Adoption Index
Country

Overall
index
ranking

Centralized
service value
received ranking

Retail centralized
service value
received ranking

P2P
exchange
trade
volume
ranking

Defi value
rreceived
ranking

Retail DeFi
value received
ranking

Laos

86

88

88

59

83

86

Uzbekistan

87

46

46

140

99

77

Finland

88

78

78

97

65

79

Lebanon

89

90

90

56

2

72

Honduras

90

84

84

73

4

54

Hungary

91

79

79

112

81

73

Latvia

92

98

98

55

96

92

Togo

93

82

82

104

101

85

Belgium

94

74

74

128

58

55

Paraguay

95

92

92

62

106

113

Albania

96

105

105

49

86

76

Mali

97

112

112

25

134

130

Madagascar

98

71

71

123

124

115

Nicaragua

99

104

104

42

116

117

Uganda

100

89

89

91

105

105

Barbados

101

121

121

11

136

137

Lithuania

102

93

93

86

92

90

Croatia

103

91

91

93

80

84

Panama

104

107

107

43

74

96

Senegal

105

115

115

37

104

82

Benin

106

94

94

85

52

103

Austria

107

83

83

127

56

66

2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List

86

Rankings for individual sub-metrics feeding into Global Crypto Adoption Index
Country

Overall
index
ranking

Centralized
service value
received ranking

Retail centralized
service value
received ranking

P2P
exchange
trade
volume
ranking

Defi value
rreceived
ranking

Retail DeFi
value received
ranking

New Zealand

108

99

99

94

76

61

Azerbaijan

109

100

100

88

102

94

Cyprus

110

118

118

40

103

104

Israel

111

101

101

105

77

65

Macedonia

112

111

111

63

97

87

Slovenia

113

87

87

131

90

97

Norway

114

108

108

83

85

99

Bosnia and
Herzegovina

115

113

113

65

112

109

Denmark

116

116

116

72

69

100

Angola

117

109

109

116

121

106

Bahamas

118

137

137

3

120

126

Montenegro

119

126

126

41

115

110

Zambia

120

119

119

75

118

111

Trinidad and
Tobago

121

122

122

60

127

121

Mauritius

122

130

130

30

82

120

Saint Lucia

123

129

129

35

135

134

Ireland

124

117

117

120

67

95

Congo

125

120

120

108

146

142

Namibia

126

131

131

64

122

127

Malta

127

133

133

79

113

112

Tajikistan

128

124

124

135

126

124

Botswana

129

135

135

51

138

138

2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List

87

Rankings for individual sub-metrics feeding into Global Crypto Adoption Index
Country

Overall
index
ranking

Centralized
service value
received ranking

Retail centralized
service value
received ranking

P2P
exchange
trade
volume
ranking

Defi value
rreceived
ranking

Retail DeFi
value received
ranking

Suriname

130

134

134

74

130

132

Libya

131

125

125

137

125

122

Haiti

132

110

110

145

128

133

Burkina Faso

133

128

128

136

108

116

Maldives

134

140

140

46

139

135

Bahrain

135

132

132

134

132

131

Luxembourg

136

138

138

78

119

123

Malawi

137

127

127

142

140

139

Gabon

138

136

136

106

133

136

Iceland

139

141

141

77

129

129

Fiji

140

143

143

58

143

145

Qatar

141

139

139

138

123

125

Guyana

142

142

142

126

142

143

Bermuda

143

144

144

107

144

144

Macao

144

145

145

119

137

140

Brunei Darussalam

145

146

146

139

141

141

Afghanistan

146

114

114

146

145

146

2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List

88

Thanks for reading the
2022 Geography of
Cryptocurrency Report
Chainalysis Authors
Kim Grauer
Director of Research
Will Kueshner
Content Marketer
Henry Updegrave
Senior Content Marketing Manager

This material is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide legal, tax, financial, or
investment advice. Recipients should consult their own advisors before making investment decisions.
This report contains links to third-party sites that are not under the control of Chainalysis, Inc. or its
affiliates (collectively “Chainalysis”). Access to such information does not imply association with, endorsement of, approval of, or recommendation by Chainalysis of the site or its operators, and Chainalysis is not
responsible for the products, services, or other content hosted therein.
Chainalysis does not guarantee or warrant the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, suitability or validity of
the information in this report and will not be responsible for any claim attributable to errors, omissions, or
other inaccuracies of any part of such material.

COMING IN 2023
202
3

Announcing
Chainalysis Playbook
Ongoing access to data for geographic trends in cryptocurrency adoption
and usage will soon be available in Chainalysis Playbook. Growth teams at
Web3 businesses will get actionable on-chain insights to retain and grow their
customer base while defending against competitors.

• Correlate crypto activity to
macroeconomic events
• Identify withdrawal and deposit
flows by geography
• See which of your competitors
are active in specific markets and
benchmark your share against
theirs
• Track where certain assets are the
most popular to prioritize where to
expand product offerings

2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index: The Full List

90

Building trust
in blockchains
About Chainalysis
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and cybersecurity companies in over 70 countries. Our data powers investigation,
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