Global crypto activity is increasing. Between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, the total value of global crypto activity increased significantly, reaching higher levels than in 2021 during the crypto bull market. We can see this pattern in the chart below, where we apply our global adoption index methodology by adding all 151 countries' index scores for each quarter from Q3 2021 to Q2 2024 and re-indexing them to show global adoption growth over time.
Last year, the growth in cryptocurrency adoption was driven primarily by lower middle-income countries. This year, however, crypto activity has increased in countries of all incomes, with a pullback in high-income countries beginning in 2024.
The launch of bitcoin ETFs in the United States has caused an increase in the overall value of bitcoin activity in all regions , with particularly strong annual growth in institutional-sized transfers and in higher-income regions such as North America and Western Europe. On the contrary, the annual growth of stablecoins is higher among retail and professional remittances and supports real-world use cases in low-income and lower-middle-income countries in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America , in particular.
When we look at annual growth in terms of service types, we see that DeFi's activity has increased significantly in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. This growth has likely led to an increase in altcoin activity in these regions, as shown in the chart above.
💬The world is moving towards mass adoption of crypto. In the coming years, blockchain and digital assets will become the backbone of new financial solutions, transforming the systems we know today.
BlackRock says crypto is being adopted faster than the internet and mobile phones