The demand for digital currencies in India is helping to transform a region that stretches across Central and South Asia and Oceania into one of the fastest growing cryptocurrency markets globally, according to Chainalysis.
The pace of expansion there is fastest after the Middle East and much of Europe, with the Indian market growing 641% and Pakistan 711% in 12 months of the total cryptocurrency that a country receives.
In addition to India, the report found increasing adoption of crypto in Pakistan and Vietnam. The share of Indian activity on decentralized financial platforms was 59%, higher than in the last two countries. Investments in regional crypto venture capital investments have skyrocketed, according to the report.
Large institutionalized transfers over $10 million in cryptocurrencies account for 42% of transactions sent from addresses based in India, compared with 28% in Pakistan and 29% in Vietnam, as stated in the report. These numbers suggest that crypto investors in India are part of larger and more complex organizations.
Over the past year, there have been a number of twists and turns for the Indian crypto market, including in the regulatory area, with some reports that the country may seek to ban or restrict cryptocurrencies. Chainalysis pointed out that more recently, it seems like the government could simply favor taxes.
According to local reports, the nation’s celebrities are now being drawn to the industry. For example, Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan created digital, non-fungible tokens to collect and became the so-called brand ambassador for the CoinDCX exchange, India’s first cryptocurrency unicorn.
