The average middle-class population in India, Nigeria and Thailand is driving the local adoption of cryptocurrencies by leveraging digital assets. This thought was shared by cryptocurrency research company Chainalysis in the fourth installment of its Global Crypto Adoption Index report. India tops this index of 154 countries, which shows that cryptoculture is finding its place in the everyday financial and investment activities of Indians. Nigeria, Vietnam, USA and Ukraine followed India in the index, securing the second, third and fourth positions respectively.
In the Chainalysis index, India ranked first in crypto transactions recorded in both retail and non-retail DeFi transactions. In terms of peer-to-peer exchange volume, India secured the fifth position while Nigeria topped the category.
“Lower-middle income (LMI) countries have seen the biggest uptick in cryptocurrency adoption at the local level over the past year. In fact, LMI is the only country category whose overall local adoption remains above Q3 2020 levels,” Chainalysis said in its findings.
To put things into perspective, countries where the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita is between $1,086 (roughly Rs. 90,057) – $4,255 (roughly Rs. 3.5 million) are classified as LMI countries. LMI countries include India, Ukraine and Nigeria.
LMI countries, where both industrialization and population are growing – represent more than 40 percent of the world’s population. Chainalysis data suggests that as these LMI countries progress, cryptocurrency adoption is likely to be a big part of the global fintech future.
“Crypto adoption at the grassroots level is not about which countries have the highest raw transaction volumes – anyone could probably guess that the biggest and wealthiest countries are way ahead there. Instead, we want to highlight the countries where average, everyday people are the most accepting of cryptocurrencies. If LMI countries are the future, then the data suggests that cryptocurrencies will be a big part of that future,” the report added.
Meanwhile, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, China, Turkey, Russia, UK, Argentina, Mexico, Bangladesh, Japan, Canada and Morocco are other countries where cryptocurrency adoption is becoming a regular financial activity, according to a report by Chainalysis.