Introduction
Over the last few years, we have witnessed the rise of cryptocurrency. Now that crypto and its related technology are getting mainstream recognition, let’s take a look at the countries that use it the most. By seeing which countries are adopting crypto, we can learn more about how different economies are using crypto to better themselves.
We haven’t just listed the most popular countries, we have also detailed how they interact with cryptocurrency. As you’ll see, the nations of the world tend to hold different cryptocurrencies based on their use cases and social/cultural trends. There’s a difference between how people hold cryptocurrency in Indiawhen compared to a country like the USA, for example.
The Most Popular Crypto Economy
The largest crypto economy is also one of the largest economies in one of the largest continents on Earth. That would be Nigeria. From Yahoo! Finance reporting, roughly one-third of Nigerian respondents have owned cryptocurrency in 2020 for both using and trading.
While this may be surprising to some, there are clear economic and cultural factors that would drive the population of Nigeria towards cryptocurrency. Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa but there is still a lot of poverty and their currency frequently suffers from double-digit inflation. Crypto transactions are free and holding more reliable crypto that will appreciate in time, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, is a great way to hedge against their inflation issues.
Mobile phones are also the standard way that people send and receive money, so the transition from the Nigerian Naira to cryptocurrency was easily facilitated through phone apps and other online services. These factors, in a country with a large population, make Nigeria the largest crypto economy in the world by popularity.
The Top Ten Popular Crypto Economies
Now that we have established that – what are the most popular crypto economies? From Statista’s numbers, here are the other biggest crypto economies across the globe (by popularity):
- Vietnam – 21%
- Philippines – 20%
- Turkey – 16%
- Peru – 16%
- Switzerland – 11%
- India – 9%
- China – 7%
- USA – 6%
- Germany – 5%
- Japan – 4%
Looking at that list, it seems that crypto is more widely accepted in countries where there are poverty and currency reliability issues. That makes sense since many cryptocurrencies were specifically designed to be a cheap way to send money.
Many of the top adherents of crypto also have large outsourcing economies, like Nigeria, the Philippines, and India. Sending and receiving crypto internationally is much easier than sending national currencies.
Many cryptocurrencies are also hard to trace, which may explain crypto adoption in countries like Turkey and China, which have both faced criticism for authoritarian government actions over the past few years. Both also banned cryptocurrency this year, possibly in retaliation to the anonymity and financial freedom that crypto can bring to their citizens.
One thing is for certain – countries on every continent are buying into cryptocurrency and the bright future that crypto can make for us all.
Cryptocurrency In Business
Many cryptocurrency projects try to become their own digital currency, meaning you can exchange them for goods and services. That’s why cryptocurrency adoption amongst the business class is so important, otherwise, your crypto is just an asset for trading.
As it stands, nearly 20,000 businesses globally accept a form of cryptocurrency as payment. Naturally, they only accept the most trendy ones, like Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin.
Who Has All The Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is by far the biggest name in cryptocurrency, to the point that many people say ‘crypto’ when they just mean Bitcoin. Who holds the first and most valuable cryptocurrency in the world?
It may be no surprise that the United States of America is the country that holds the most Bitcoin. Bitcoin did start there, after all, so it makes sense that many early adopters were based in the States. In the early 2010s, some people mined hundreds of Bitcoins and then bought pizza with them. If they still held them today, they’d be billionaires. Many others did hold and became millionaires and billionaires within a decade.
With Statista’s numbers again, the USA accounted for $1.52 billion worth of Bitcoin trading in 2020 alone. The second-highest is Russia at just $421.38 million, so the USA is ahead by a lot!
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