India’s Crypto Market Up 641% From Last Year

59% of the crypto transactions in India take place on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. India also ranks 2nd in Crypto Adoption Index.

According to a report published by crypto analytics company Chainalysis, India’s crypto market grew at a staggering 641% second only to Pakistan (at 706%) in the Central & Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) region.

CSAO region contains the top 3 countries from the Global Crypto Adoption Index such as Vietnam, India, and Pakistan respectively.

These countries have high levels of grassroots cryptocurrency adoption. But, they’re quite different in terms of the raw transaction value.

India Compared to its CSAO Peers

India and Vietnam’s markets are much larger than Pakistan’s. Also, India has a much bigger share of activity taking place on “DeFi platforms at 59%, versus 47% for Vietnam and 33% for Pakistan.”

Another peculiarity is that Ethereum and ‘wETH’ constitute a bigger share of Indian market activities than of Vietnamese or Pakistani market activities.

It could be because Ethereum and wETH are more commonly used for DeFi transactions, where India is leading the charge.

People in Vietnam don’t have many options for investing. The absence of a well-developed financial market for ETFs, options, or futures, lack of financial literacy, and low stock brokerage penetration rate (5%) in Vietnam have contributed to retail investors preferring crypto. The technology-savvy population is very less in Vietnam. That’s why there’s a dearth of sophisticated investors in the country.

Pakistan also has a similar case. Most traders are focused on trading altcoins rather than saving. “Everybody wants easy money obviously. But nobody wants to risk or have any loss”, explained by Muhammad, a Paxful Expert Trader.

In comparison to these countries, India has a very mature and sophisticated market.

“Large institutional-sized transfers above $10 million worth of cryptocurrency represent 42% of transactions sent from India-based addresses, versus 28% for Pakistan and 29% for Vietnam.”

As per the report, India’s large freelance market and crypto entrepreneurs are also major factors for the growth. The growth is so phenomenal that even social media celebrities are advocating crypto assets.