Ukraine, Russia and Venezuela global leaders in crypto adoption

A report released by Chainalysis showed that these three countries are ahead in terms of cryptocurrency adoption

According to a report recently published by Chainalysis, Ukraine leads the way when it comes to crypto adoption; followed by Russia and Venezuela.

The report, entitled the Global Crypto Adoption Index 2020, evaluates the position of each country according to four metrics:

1. On-chain cryptocurrency value received, weighted by purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita
2. On-chain retail value transferred, weighted by PPP per capita
3. Number of on-chain cryptocurrency deposits, weighted by number of internet users
4. Peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange trade volume, weighted by PPP per capita and number of internet users

According to their introduction, the aim of the report is to highlight countries that are leading the way when it comes to grassroots cryptocurrency adoption.

“While trading and speculation are important to the cryptocurrency economy, we wanted our index to emphasize grassroots adoption by everyday users. After all, any long term speculation on cryptocurrency is likely predicated on the idea that cryptocurrency can become a mainstream means of value transfer and, eventually, payments,” the report explains.

“Our index is meant to show which countries are leading the way toward that eventuality.”

In addition, the index also takes into account the volume of trades made on peer to peer (P2P) crypto exchanges weighed by both the number of internet users and PPP.

The report indicates that many countries experience uneven levels of development across their cryptocurrency sectors. The index’s per capita weighting ranked China poorly in terms of number of on-chain deposits and P2P trade due to its large population, which dragged the country down to fourth overall — even though the country dominates on-chain rankings by both retail and total value.

On the other end of the spectrum, the two top-performing nations according to P2P exchange volume, which are Kenya and Venezuela, rank in the top five overall, even though neither made it to the top ten list in any other metric.

Chainalysis points to the country of Venezuela as an “excellent example” of what forces help drive cryptocurrency adoption in emerging countries, particularly in its function amongst Venezuelan residents to mitigate economic instability.

The report also ranked Vietnam second for its value of both retail and all on-chain transactions, even though the local government made several early attempts to crack down on cryptocurrency in the past.

There are no western European nations that have made it to the list of top ten countries by crypto adoption.