Which country ranks top in owning or using crypto ?
I am always curious. After I spent some time researching what crypto non-believers are saying I wanted to do the opposite. I was curious about which world region has the highest percentage of crypto users. I know crypto is big in North America and Europe. But, what I found on this infographic was totally opposite of what I assumed. I should have done better in guessing where the crypto market is flourishing. I have published a post a while ago on Leofinance that provided an overview of the total number of Metamask users around the globe. Even from that perspective, I should have guessed the innovation and adoption is happening in other parts of the world.
You will find more infographics at Statista
According to the Statista Global Consumer Survey 2020, Nigeria has the highest percentage (32%) of the population who owned or used cryptocurrency. The report suggests it could be due to
Reliance on remittances and the prevalence of peer-to-peer phone payments
https://www.statista.com/chart/18345/crypto-currency-adoption/
This is huge because almost one third of the Nigerian population has, at some point, owned or used crypto currency. The report cites two major reasons behind this crypto adoption -
- The high cost to send conventional money across the border and the relative ease when it comes to cryptocurrencies
- The high adoption of mobile phones and the technological advancements in plug and play with crypto currencies
These reasons make sense as the traditional way of doing banking and money management is not efficient and cumbersome in any developing nations. People want efficiency and ease and they also don't want to pay higher fees. Individuals may also want to get rid of the unnecessary red-tape of the official paperwork when sending their hard earned money.
It is fascinating to see that the other top 5 countries mentioned in the report are developing nations and growing economies. This shows how crypto adoption is working and how the growing economies are leading the innovation. Vietnam, South Africa, Turkey and Peru are the top 5 countries on the list.
Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash
Only 8% of the Chinese population and the 7% of the US population has used or owned cryptocurrencies. I find that interesting given how BTC mining and crypto exchanges are concentrated around the developed economies.
The other thing that surprised me most was how India was not even mentioned in the report. There is a huge market and yet, the not so helpful government regulation has limited the adoption of this new technology in India.
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I'm proud of my country 😄
You should be. It seems Spain is way ahead of the curve.
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It's quite surprising to be honest, but if they say it's true, then it's true :)
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The report is from 2020 and only includes 65 countries with the sample size of 1 to 1.5k
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I didn't want to be difficult as I know you didn't do the poll but Nigeria is a country with 195.9 million inhabitants (2018). Soooo ... 1000 to 4000 seems a tiny number of people :)
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Yes it is. That's why the report is representative. But, it still aligns quite well with other findings where they reported Nigeria to be a country where they have increased appetite for innovation around crypto and mobile payments. Still, the result could me more accurate if you increase your sample size :)
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Exactly. I'm not contesting Nigeria's position, just would be better to see a larger sample.
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Our banks and currency are terrible. Many people prefer holding crypto either as a store if value, to leverage volatility or to stake and earn from inflation. Either way, it is way better than our local currency.
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I understand that, however that's besides the point. Using a sample of 1000 to 4000 people to determine the level of crypto usage in a country the size of Nigeria is not exactly what I call right.
Asking 1000 people of 196 milliond and asking 1000 people of a country with 5 million inhabitants is not the same when you compare the data.
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Oh right that's true. I think there's also this thing they do where they get block activity information based on the nationality of exchange wallets or something like that.
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https://twitter.com/raamesa/status/1346544438189973506
Wow, this Nigerian people are crushing it!
Hope it was for other reasons...
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They are definitely keen on trying new technologies.
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If it is surprising, then maybe because it is not true!
Those surveys are completely biased. All they can say is about the respndents, but not the overall population. Especially in countries like Nigeria & Vietnam I assume that a lower %age of people has access to internet etc., so by asking those selected ones with access to this technology, you are filtering the population much more than in other countries where basically everybody has a computer.
That could be true as they could have included more respondents to the survey. But, the message for me is to understand the trend. It is definitely true that these countries (Nigeria, Vietnam) are trying and adopting new tech compared to others. I have seen both of these countries ranked higher in other crypto adoption metric on surveys conducted by various organizations.
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I wrote about this more indepth here
https://twitter.com/Mistakili/status/1339930797063729153?s=19
Most Nigerians are hedging into crypto because of the declining fiat currency and corrupt govt
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Wonderful. Thanks for the link. And, it is also impressive to see the rising numbers of mobile phone use for payments which is very similar to other developing economies.
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Main reason for that is our dwindling currency and terrible banking system
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