India has maintained its top position in global cryptocurrency adoption for the second year in a row, despite strict regulations and heavy taxes, according to a report by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
From June 2023 to July 2024, India ranked high in the use of centralized exchanges. This shows that despite the country’s tough stance on cryptocurrencies, including show-cause notices to nine offshore exchanges in December 2023, investors continue to embrace digital assets.
Eric Jardine, research lead at Chainalysis, highlighted that India’s wide adoption across various crypto assets reflects growing participation, even through services not banned by local regulations.
Some restrictions are also being rolled back, such as Binance’s efforts to re-enter the market after registering with India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). Binance was fined ₹18.82 crore ($2.25 million) in June, while KuCoin, another crypto exchange, registered earlier but faced a smaller penalty.
Sumit Gupta, CEO of CoinDCX, also shared the news on Twitter and said, “This demonstrates that India’s young, tech-savvy population understands the underlying value of blockchain and #Web3 technologies and has adopted crypto as an investment asset class faster than any other country in the world.”
However, India’s adoption and value creation are mostly happening offshore and on non-compliant platforms due to high taxes and regulatory uncertainty.
In South Asia, countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines also ranked among the top 20 for crypto adoption. In Indonesia, where cryptocurrency is banned as a payment method but allowed as an investment, trading reached $157.1 billion in the year leading up to July.
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