Jason Simon discusses the sudden rise in global cryptocurrency adoption

The adoption rate of cryptocurrencies grew by 880% worldwide over the past year, with Vietnam, India, Pakistan and other emerging economies leading the way. It goes without saying that this trend will continue to grow as time goes by and that is why Jason Simon, a specialist in the cryptocurrency space, provides detailed information on why the world is increasingly embracing cryptocurrencies.

Different studies have been conducted to compare cryptocurrency adoption rates around the world based on three main metrics: on-chain cryptocurrency value received, on-chain retail value transferred and peer-to-peer exchange trading volume between June 2020 and June 2021. Based on this, Vietnam led the field by far, achieving an overall index score of 1. Some distance behind were India (0.37), Pakistan (0.36), Ukraine (0.29) and Kenya (0.28).

This is a substantial change from last year’s Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index, which placed Ukraine at the top with a score of 1. Vietnam was a distant tenth last year with a score of 0.443. While Kenya ranked fifth in last year’s Index with a score of 0.645, India and Pakistan are new entrants to the top 10.

“Emerging economies are leading the way in cryptocurrency adoption,” Simon asserts. “While cryptocurrency adoption has soared around the world over the past year, it was especially evident in emerging economies. In large part, this can be explained by the large volumes of transactions on local peer-to-peer platforms when taking into account per capita purchasing power parity and the total number of Internet users.”

Several interviews with experts in these countries revealed that many residents use P2P cryptocurrency exchanges as their primary avenue for accessing cryptocurrencies, often because they do not have access to centralized exchanges. Knowing this, it is not surprising that regions with many emerging markets account for a large portion of web traffic to P2P service sites.

Simon points out that many emerging economies are undergoing massive devaluation of their native currencies, leading people to seek alternative means of storing their funds. In addition, digital assets are easier to trade internationally, which is especially important as local governments can limit the amount of domestic currency that can be sent abroad.

Meanwhile, economic powerhouses such as the US and China have dropped to lower positions in the Index compared to 2020. Specifically, the US currently ranks 8th (it was 6th in 2020), while China appears in 13th position (it was 4th). Simon notes that the main reason for the drop of both countries in the Index was that their “rankings in P2P commerce volume weighted by Internet user population declined dramatically.” China fell from 53rd in this ranking to 155th, while the US fell from 16th to 109th.

“In the case of China, this is not surprising, especially considering the massive crackdown on the Bitcoin industry in recent months,” Simon explains. Still, the global pace of cryptocurrency adoption and its geographic spread over the past year have shown that “cryptocurrencies are a truly global phenomenon,” Simon concludes.

This exceptional growth that cryptocurrencies are having is not unusual, since many experts in the field such as Simon consider it as the future of payment methods in every sense, from a purchase on Amazon to a bet in a casino.

It is not surprising this favorable progress that cryptocurrencies have had, because their prosperous advance is not for nothing. They have achieved this because the general public considers them as a safe and effective method of maintaining their currencies, or even increasing them in some cases.