India is one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrency markets globally, according to Chainalysis. In fact, the demand for digital currency in India is driving the growth of cryptocurrencies in central and southern Asia and Oceania.

The pace of expansion in India is the strongest after the Middle East and much of Europe, India’s cryptocurrency market grew by 641% in the past year while Pakistan’s crypto market expanded by 711% over the last 12 months. The Chainalysis report looked at trends over the year to June using a metric that estimates the total cryptocurrency received by a country.

Aside from India, the report flagged increased crypto adoption in Pakistan and Vietnam. The share of Indian activity on decentralized finance platforms was 59%, higher than the latter two nations. Regional crypto-related venture capital investment jumped, according to the report.

When it comes to activity on DeFi platforms, India’s share is 59%, higher than that of Pakistan (33%) and Vietnam (47%). “Interesting differences also emerge when we look at the breakdown of transaction value by currency. For instance, we see that Ethereum and wETH make up a bigger share of Indian activity than of Vietnamese or Pakistani activity,” the study said. 

“Large institutional-sized transfers above $10 million worth of cryptocurrency represent 42% of transactions sent from India-based addresses, versus 28% for Pakistan and 29% for Vietnam,” the report said. “Those numbers suggest that India’s cryptocurrency investors are part of larger, more sophisticated organizations.”

The past year has seen several twists and turns in the Indian crypto market, including on the regulatory front. There have been speculations that the country might try to ban or otherwise restrict crypto. Chainalysis also pointed out recently that it looks as if the government may simply favor taxation.

Chainalysis looked at cryptocurrency transactions between July 2020 and June 2021. The CSAO region is the fourth largest cryptocurrency market in the study. CSAO is also one of the fastest-growing nations in the report. Transaction activity in CSAO grew by 706% compared to last year in terms of raw value, and its share of global cryptocurrency activity grew by 2%.

India has nearly 1.5 crore investors holding crypto worth Rs 15,000 crore. An increasing number of people in India are now looking to get into the space, especially after the bitcoin price rally over the last year. Nearly 350 Indian startups are currently operating in the cryptocurrency field and the blockchain space.

Indian celebrities are now being attracted to the sector as well, according to local reports. For instance, Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan has been designated as the brand ambassador of the Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX, India’s first crypto unicorn. Recently, he also became the only Bollywood A-lister to launch a limited edition, unique Amitabh Bachchan artworks as non-fungible tokens. Bachchan will roll out a collection of unique and limited artworks themed around him on the BeyondLife.club, which will also mark the inauguration of the platform. The auction will take place in the first week of November.