India surprises with having 6th highest crypto ownership globally despite ban threats: Research

Interestingly, the UAE, seen in the forefront of promoting the digital assets sector with market and investor-friendly policies and support, does not figure in the top 10 list of crypto ownership or digital currency adoption in proportion to population of countries.

China, surprisingly despite widespread bans on crypto services and transactions in the country, has the largest proportion of its population owning cryptocurrency at 16.23 percent, revealed the research by Tipalti, a leading global financial sector firm specialising in payment solutions.

The US has the world’s second largest proportion of its population owning crypto at 13.38 percent, followed by Singapore in third place, where this figure sits at 11.05 percent, said Tipalti, which in Hebrew means ‘we handled it’.

Its research looked at the countries with the highest level of crypto ownership, as well as their digital tools and digital currency adoptions to reveal the countries with the best digital economy outlooks.

Crypto market rally

Significantly, the Tipalti research findings come at a time when the crypto market seems to be on a rebound, with Bitcoin (BTC) breaking the $25,000 mark this week, taking the overall crypto market cap to about $1.10 trillion.

“The dollar rally is fading away and we can expect a spike in the BTC-USD pair in the coming weeks,” Tarusha Mittal, co-founder and COO of Dapps and UniFarm, India’s first Web3 app story and group staking platform, told Arabian Business.

“The news of the US defaulting if its debt ceiling is not raised has also sparked the inflow of funds in Bitcoin which is driving the current rally in the world’s largest digital asset,” Mittal said.

Asian factors such as Hong Kong regulations and the opening up of the Chinese economy are also creating a significant impact on the crypto market, she said.

Dhruvil Shah, SVP – technology at Liminal, a digital wallet infrastructure platform, said the digital asset market has been witnessing a considerable inflow of funds since last week, leading to Bitcoin options volume hitting $5.4 billion.

“Users have created fresh positions with a bullish sentiment for the next quarter. The current momentum is expected to sustain if the macroeconomic factors remain favourable,” Shah told Arabian Business.

Mittal, however, cautioned that a sudden spike in the BTC prices may encourage investors to go for profit booking and liquidate their positions.

“The profit booking may result in some pullback in the prices in the near future,” Mittal said.

Shah also said it is slightly difficult to predict the next mover, as digital assets are facing regulatory pressure in the US, one of the biggest markets for digital assets, which could delay the next bull run in the crypto market.

“The regulatory pressure in the US, geo-political uncertainties, and the global recession numbers will be some of the key factors deciding the course of the digital asset market,” Shah said.

Other findings of Tipalti research

The Tipalti research also revealed that Singapore has the most promising digital economy, with a score of 10.

The Southeast Asian country is the fifth largest exporter of integrated circuits in the world, with exports in 2020 worth $62.7 billion, compared to the country’s total tech exports of $193.93 billion in the same year, Tipalti said.

China has by far the highest annual tech exports at $942.31 billion.

Denmark has the fastest median internet speed of any country in our study at 123.96 Mbps.

Indonesia made a surprising entry in the Tipalti list for digital skill talents.

“Indonesia is the country with the highest technical skills proficiency in our study, with a score of 100 percent. It also claimed the top score of 100 percent for data science skills,” Tipalti said.

The country that scored the highest on the National Cyber Security Index was Greece, with a rating of 96.10.