RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Venezuela and Argentina are ranked among the top 10 nations in the “Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index” study, while Colombia is ranked one place below Argentina.
In Latin America, Venezuela is the leader in 7th place, Argentina is next in 10th and Colombia in 11th place. As for the remaining countries, Vietnam and India lead the list.
The United States is ranked below Venezuela. With respect to the same 2020 study published by the cryptocurrency analysis firm, Venezuela dropped 4 places after ranking 3rd in 2020; while Colombia dropped 2 places (from 9th to 11th).
Argentina had the best performance last year, moving from 28th to 10th place in this new report.
The report assessed 154 countries worldwide based on 3 key metrics: value of cryptocurrencies received on-chain, retail value transferred on-chain and peer-to-peer trading volume. Each metric was weighted by purchasing power parity.
The aim of the report is to provide an objective assessment of which countries hold the highest rates of cryptocurrency adoption, with a methodology that weighs the final score of 1 as the highest for each of the stipulated metrics and not only on transaction volume, as has typically been used in the past to rank countries on P2P platforms.
In this context, Chainalysis notes that unlike its 2020 report, the fourth metric that contributed to the overall ranking of each country at that time was eliminated: Number of deposits per country weighted by number of internet users.
The report further highlights that at the end of the second quarter of 2021, global cryptocurrency adoption grew by 881% over the past year and by 2,300% over the third quarter of 2019.
Venezuela remains one of the countries with the highest cryptocurrency adoption in the region and worldwide, above economies such as the United States.
Among the main reasons is that countries in emerging markets such as Venezuela, Kenya, Nigeria and Vietnam, rank very high in the use of P2P platforms as the main means of exchange to escape inflation, and to send and receive remittances, as well as an access gateway to cryptocurrencies due to restrictions imposed on centralized exchanges.
The study shows that the total volume of transactions involving lower and retail-sized payments below US$10,000 in cryptocurrencies has P2P exchanges such as Localbitcoins as the main players.
Finally, at the regional level, Central and South Asia, as well as Latin America and Africa, account for more web traffic sent to P2P platforms than regions with larger economies countries such as Western Europe and East Asia.
The reasons converge once again with the need for cryptocurrency savings, payments for professional services in cryptocurrencies due to exchange rate hikes and the use of these P2P platforms for payments/remittances.