Although cryptocurrency has still a long way to go in terms of being a commonly accepted form of digital payment in developed markets. In emerging economies, its digital nature, immunity to inflation, and local currency controls make it a very attractive form of payment.

In developed markets, crypto is an increasingly popular trading instrument. Its high volatility and lack of correlation with other traded securities such as stocks and bonds make it an attractive instrument for traders.

Several countries from across the globe were analyzed to determine the value of different forms of cryptocurrency in US dollars. After acquiring data for every applicable country, each location was given a score in the relevant categories. Let’s explore the results.

Top 10 Countries Worldwide By Cryptocurrency Usage

1. United Arab Emirates (27.2%)
2. Vietnam  (26.2%)
3. United States (13.1%)
4. Philippines (13%)
5. India (12.1%)
6. Singapore (11%)
7. Ukraine (10.3%)
8. Venezuela (10.3%)
9. South Africa (9.7%)
10. Thailand (8.9%)

NB Russia excluded due to the lack of payments data post the Ukraine war

This ranking analyzes data from crypto payment services and so is a gauge of the actual commercial usage of crypto in each country (as opposed to the broader gauge of crypto ownership in the Global Crypto Adoption Index below).

Notable in the above listing is the prevalence of developing economies with seven of the ten being considered developing economies. All seven of these countries have some form of currency controls which highlights the use of crypto as a frictionless medium for avoiding local capital restrictions. 

Another factor driving the adoption of crypto is the reach of the banking system. In the Philippines, only 30% of the population has a bank account driving many to use alternative digital payment solutions such as crypto. 

Interestingly, no European country is represented in the top ten, this is mostly due to the high level of financial regulation in Europe. Although there are numerous crypto services based in Europe, these often serve non-Europeans as EU citizens face strict regulations when connecting their bank accounts with these services.

The UAE tops the list, although it should be noted that this is driven primarily by a government initiative to be the region's pre-eminent crypto center and not natural organic usage as with the other countries. 

Top 10 Countries in a Global Crypto Adoption Index

1. Vietnam
2. Philippines
3. Ukraine
4. India
5. United States 
6. Pakistan
7. Brazil
8. Thailand 
9. Russia
10. China

The Global Crypto Adoption Index is a broader measure of the prevalence of crypto ownership and usage in an economy. It blends, ownership, P2P payments, trading and Defi usage into a single score for each country.

Vietnam has the overall highest penetration of crypto, this reflects the lack of a robust conventional financial system but also, interestingly the age of the population. Crypto adoption is far higher amongst younger people, Vietnam with one of the world’s youngest populations, naturally skews to the higher levels of crypto adoption.

China just makes it on the list, primarily due to several government-backed crypto initiatives such as the digital yuan which was introduced in 2022. However, due to the strict government restrictions on many crypto activities such as trading, the ‘unofficial’ level of crypto adoption is likely to be far higher in China.

Neither Thailand nor Philippines was in the top ten for 2021, reflecting the strong growth of crypto in South-East Asian economies (Indonesia is now ranked 20th in the world). 

As with the above Crypto Usage index, no EU countries are in the top ten (or even the top 20) in the world. This is likely to change from 2023 when EU legislation standardizing European bank’s relationship with crypto finance services is expected to be passed. 

Leading Cryptocurrencies Globally 

(% share of entire crypto market by value as of March 1, 2023)

• Bitcoin (BTC) 46% 
• Ethereum (ETH) 19%
• Tether (USDT) 6.7%
• Binance Coin (BNB) 4.4%
• USD Coin (USDC) 2.94%

The market share of cryptocurrencies is probably the most stable aspect of crypto. The top five cryptocurrencies has been unchanged for two years, and Bitcoin has even grown in dominance reflecting the maturity of the crypto market as it consolidates on just a few protocols.

Top 5 Largest Crypto Exchanges 

(% share of entire crypto trading by total value of all spot crypto transactions on platform in month of Feb 2023)

1. Binance (61.8%)
2. Coinbase Exchange (8.3%)
3. Kraken  (4.5%)
4. KuCoin (4.3%)
5. Bybit (3.9%)

There has been considerable flux in the crypto exchanges in the last year. The failure of FTX was a major inflection point with most of the trading volume of FTX migrating to Binance which has grown its market share from 48% at the start of 2022 to over 60% by Feb 2023. Since 2021 Coinbase and Kraken are to be the second and third echanges by volume.

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*calculated by summing the total volume of payments for five major crypto gateways (Bitpay, Coinbase Commerce, Coingate, and Alfa coins) for each country in 2022 and dividing by the adult working population. 

Note that AlfaCoin does not disclose UAE separately (assumed 75% of Middle East volume is UAE).