Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Statistics

Hundreds of millions of people now own cryptocurrency, but how they use it depends a lot on where they live. In some countries, crypto is mainly an investment. In others, it is a way to save in dollars, send money abroad, or get around costly banking. This page brings together the latest data on how many people own crypto, which countries lead, and how adoption is changing in Africa, India, Europe and Ukraine.

Figures are the latest available as of early November 2026, unless noted otherwise.

At a glance

• About 774 million people owned cryptocurrency worldwide in June 2026, according to Crypto.com. That’s roughly 9.4% of the world’s population.
• The number of crypto owners has grown more than seven times since January 2021.
• India has the most crypto owners of any country, an estimated 97.5 million in 2023.
• Brazil ranked 1st on Chainalysis’s 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index, followed by the United States and Nigeria.
• Sub-Saharan Africa was the fastest-growing crypto region, with activity up 13.4% to $101 billion.
• Crypto ownership in the euro area more than doubled, from 4% of adults in 2022 to 9% in 2024.
• Ukraine ranked 7th in the world for crypto adoption, the highest in Europe. About 18% of Ukrainians use crypto.
• Crypto activity held up in a downturn: the global crypto economy shrank only 1.6% while total crypto market value fell about 50%.

How Many People Own Crypto Worldwide?

Between 560 million and 774 million people own cryptocurrency worldwide. The number depends on which source you use.

Crypto.com has the most recent count. It found 774 million owners in June 2026, up 4.5% from 741 million in December 2025. Triple-A reported a lower figure of over 560 million owners in 2024, equal to 6.8% of the world’s population.

Ownership has grown more than seven times since January 2021, when Crypto.com counted 106 million owners. The number nearly tripled during 2021, reaching 295 million by December. Crypto.com put growth at 39% in 2022 and 34% in 2023, measured from revised January counts of 306 million and 432 million, so those rates don’t line up exactly with the year-end figures in the chart below. Growth then slowed to 12.4% in 2025. Crypto.com linked the 2025 increase to pro-crypto policies in the US and more investment from companies and institutions.

Show the numbers

Date	Global owners
Jan 2021	106 million
Dec 2021	295 million
Dec 2022	425 million
Dec 2023	580 million
Dec 2024	659 million
Dec 2025	741 million
Jun 2026	774 million

Source: Crypto.com Crypto Market Sizing Reports (2021–2026). Crypto.com revises its methodology over time, so earlier figures may not be exactly comparable.

Bitcoin is still the most widely held cryptocurrency. Crypto.com counted 373 million Bitcoin owners in June 2026, almost half of all crypto owners. Ether is growing faster. Its owners rose 9.1% in the first half of 2026 to 191 million, compared with 2.5% growth for Bitcoin. For more, see How Many Bitcoins Are There? and How Many Cryptocurrencies Are There?

The world population was 8.22 billion in 2025, based on World Bank data. Using Crypto.com’s June 2026 count, about 9.4% of people own cryptocurrency, or around 1 in 10.

The two sources gave different numbers for the same year. For 2024, Crypto.com counted 659 million owners and Triple-A counted over 560 million. Crypto.com builds its estimate from on-chain data. Triple-A combines country-level studies with its own research.

Neither method can count people exactly. One person can hold several wallets or exchange accounts, and some holders never show up on-chain. Crypto.com estimates that another 300,000 to 1.3 million investors hold Bitcoin or Ether through US spot ETFs and are not included in its count. Survey wording also matters. Austria’s central bank notes that the way a survey asks about crypto can change the ownership rate it records. For this reason, this page reports each estimate separately with its source.

For US numbers, see How Many People Own Cryptocurrencies in America?

Which Countries Have the Highest Cryptocurrency Adoption?

No single ranking shows which country leads in crypto. The answer changes depending on what you measure: the number of owners, the share of the population that owns crypto, or how much crypto activity a country has.

By number of owners

India has the most cryptocurrency owners in the world. Triple-A estimated 97.5 million owners in India in 2023, followed by China with 78.1 million and the United States with 46.9 million.

Source: Triple-A, 2023 data. *For Nigeria and Brazil, Triple-A’s listed ownership rates (10.34% and 7.8%) don’t match its own owner counts and population figures, which work out to about 5.9% and 12.0%. Triple-A’s Nigeria page also cites an older estimate of over 22 million owners.

Large populations push India and China to the top of this list, but their ownership rates are low. Vietnam has the highest rate among the top 10, with almost 1 in 5 people owning crypto.

By crypto activity

Chainalysis ranks 117 countries by how much crypto activity happens there. Its 2026 index combines four measures: total flows into crypto services, on-chain balances, peer-to-peer activity, and cross-border flows. Values are adjusted for each country’s purchasing power, and the overall score rewards countries that do well on all four.

Source: Chainalysis 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index (12 months to June 2026).

Brazil ranked first without leading any single category. Nigeria ranked first in both peer-to-peer and cross-border flows but much lower in total flows and balances. Chainalysis rebuilt its method for 2026, so these ranks can’t be compared directly with earlier years. India, for example, was first in 2025 under the old method.

TRM Labs measures something different: retail trading volume. In the first quarter of 2026, global retail volume reached $979 billion, down 11% from a year earlier. The United States led by a wide margin.

Source: TRM Labs Q1 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index.

How the rankings compare

The same country can rank very differently on each list. India has the most owners but ranks 6th on Chainalysis’s index and 4th by retail volume. The United States ranks 3rd by owners, 2nd on Chainalysis’s index, and 1st by volume.

Owner counts follow population size. Chainalysis’s index favors countries with steady activity across different uses. TRM’s volume ranking favors large, trading-heavy markets.

Cryptocurrency Adoption in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is the smallest crypto region by value, but it grew the fastest. Chainalysis recorded $101 billion in activity between July 2025 and June 2026, up 13.4%. Most of that growth came from people using crypto to manage money and send it abroad, and from businesses looking for cheaper cross-border payments.

Two countries lead the region. South Africa and Nigeria together make up more than three-quarters of all crypto activity in Sub-Saharan Africa. They got there in different ways.

South Africa

South Africa’s crypto economy reached $39.3 billion, up 52% despite the global bear market. Growth showed up in every category Chainalysis measured, led by cross-border peer-to-peer stablecoin transfers.

Crypto is also used for everyday payments. Chainalysis counted $8.34 billion in business-like payments in South Africa during the period, with each quarter higher than the one before. This category covers transfers up to $50,000, from businesses paying contracts in crypto to customers paying for a meal with a QR code. It grew faster than South Africa’s institutional crypto inflows, which reached $1.29 billion.

Payment infrastructure helped. In 2025, the QR payment service Scan to Pay and the crypto platform MoneyBadger let shoppers pay with Bitcoin at stores. By August 2026, the program covered nearly 700,000 store locations. MoneyBadger found that half of its Q2 2026 payments were under $13 and 87% were under $60, with online shopping making up 48% of total payment value.

South Africa also has one of the region’s most developed licensing systems. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) opened crypto licensing in June 2023. By March 31, 2026, it had licensed 310 crypto asset service providers out of 533 applications. It declined 17 applications, and 124 applicants withdrew. The FSCA has also opened 81 investigations into unlicensed providers, 51 of which are still ongoing.

Cross-border rules are still changing. On August 3, 2026, the National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) released a draft Crypto Assets Manual for public comment. It follows the draft Capital Flow Management Regulations published in April 2026. Under the draft, a transfer counts as cross-border when crypto moves from a licensed local provider to an offshore provider or to a self-held wallet, and it must be reported to the SARB. At this stage, only individuals would be allowed to move crypto offshore, through licensed providers and within their foreign investment allowances. After strong pushback, the SARB said it is revising the draft rules and moving away from pre-approvals, according to Chainalysis.

Regular transfers out of South Africa are costly. It is the most expensive G20 country to send money from, at an average of 15.65% for $200 in Q3 2025, according to the World Bank.

Nigeria

Nigeria recorded $38.1 billion in crypto activity. Its overall crypto economy fell 3%, but its crypto services sector grew, supported by domestic exchanges. Nigeria ranks 1st in the world for both peer-to-peer and cross-border crypto flows on Chainalysis’s 2026 index.

Economic pressure is a big reason. In its 2025 report, Chainalysis noted that “in Nigeria, where access to USD is tightly controlled and inflation remains high, bitcoin has become a widely recognized financial hedge and alternative savings tool.” Stablecoins play a similar role. Tether (USDT) made up 7% of crypto purchases on centralized exchanges in Nigeria, compared with 5% in US dollar markets.

Ownership estimates vary. Triple-A lists 13.3 million owners in Nigeria for 2023, while its Nigeria page cites an older estimate of over 22 million.

Nigeria’s rules have developed over several years. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a statement on digital assets in 2020 and rules on issuing, offering and holding digital assets in 2022. The Investments and Securities Act 2025 defines virtual and digital assets as securities (Section 357) and gives the SEC power to register and regulate crypto exchanges and service providers (Section 3). The SEC has also published proposed rules for digital asset operations and markets, which are not yet final.

Kenya

Kenya is smaller in value but has an active user base. Triple-A estimated 6.2 million owners in Kenya in 2023, or 10.7% of the population. Kenya is outside the top 20 of Chainalysis’s 2026 index.

Kenya passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act in 2025, which created a licensing framework for crypto businesses. Kenya and Ghana both passed stablecoin rules in 2025, according to Chainalysis, and Kenya is one of several countries testing stablecoins tied to local currencies.

Stablecoins, wallets, and remittances

Stablecoins are reshaping crypto use across the region. Between 2022 and 2026, the value of stablecoins received through peer-to-peer channels grew from $2.3 billion to $14.6 billion. Over the same period, Bitcoin received through these channels fell 60%, from $36 billion to $14.6 billion.

People in the region also hold their own crypto more than people anywhere else. Personal wallets received 32.3% of all value in Sub-Saharan Africa, the highest share globally. Most of this came from cross-border peer-to-peer transfers (70.9%), followed by domestic peer-to-peer transfers (18.5%) and transfers from services (10.7%).

Western countries sent most of the crypto remittances received in Sub-Saharan Africa, a total of $888 million during the period, up 36%. The number of transfers grew faster, rising 43% to more than one million. Where the money comes from is uneven. Western Europe is home to 64% of the Sub-Saharan Africa-born residents in the countries Chainalysis studied, but it sent only 10% of crypto remittances. France sent $5.4 million, compared with $223 million from the United States.

Sending money through regular channels is expensive. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most costly region in the world to send money to, according to the World Bank. In Q3 2025, sending $200 there cost an average of 8.46%, compared with a global average of 6.36% and a UN target of 3%.

Cryptocurrency Adoption in India

India has more crypto owners than any other country. Triple-A estimated 97.5 million owners in 2023, or 7.1% of the population. There is no official count. India’s Finance Ministry told Parliament in February 2026 that it does not keep data on individual crypto holdings, according to Business Today.

India recorded $135 billion in crypto activity between July 2025 and June 2026, according to Chainalysis. That was a 14.7% drop during the global bear market and one of the sharpest declines in Central and Southern Asia and Oceania. India is still the region’s third-largest crypto economy, after Singapore ($284 billion) and Australia ($173.1 billion).

Exchanges are where most of India’s activity happens. Indian users received $88.4 billion through centralized exchanges during the period, the most in the region, slightly ahead of Singapore at $82.3 billion.

Most Indians use crypto as an investment. Ashish Singhal, co-founder of the Indian exchange CoinSwitch, told Chainalysis that crypto is “predominantly being used as an investable asset, primarily for buying, holding, and selling digital assets.” He added that more investors aged 35 and over are joining. Edul Patel, CEO of the exchange Mudrex, said users are moving from short-term trading to holding crypto alongside stocks, gold and mutual funds.

India’s ranks on Chainalysis’s 2026 index reflect this. It placed 2nd in the world for total flows and 3rd for on-chain balances, but 16th for both peer-to-peer and cross-border activity. That puts it 6th overall. India ranked 1st in 2025, but Chainalysis changed its method for 2026, so the two years can’t be compared directly.

Adoption despite high taxes

India taxes crypto heavily. Under Section 115BBH of the Income Tax Act, profits from crypto are taxed at a flat 30%, plus surcharge and cess. Only the purchase cost can be deducted, and losses can’t be used to offset other income. A 1% tax is also deducted at source (TDS) on crypto transfers under Section 194S. Small payments are exempt: no TDS applies to payments up to ₹50,000 for most individuals, or ₹10,000 for other payers. Platforms must also report crypto transactions to the tax department under Section 285BAA.

The 1% tax changed where Indians trade. The share of volume going to Indian exchanges fell sharply in mid-2022, from around 7% to 0.7%, and has stayed low since, according to Chainalysis. Elsewhere in the region, domestic platforms handle about 7% of local volume on average. CoinSwitch’s Singhal pointed to the “friction” of local tax rules. Indian exchanges collect the 1% tax, but offshore exchanges may not.

How India regulates crypto providers

India has no full legal framework for crypto. Instead, crypto service providers must register with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-India) and follow anti-money laundering rules. FIU-India is the only authority that registers and monitors these providers. It tightened its registration process in January 2025, adding in-person meetings, document checks and a declaration of any pending legal cases.

As of March 31, 2025, 49 crypto service providers were registered with FIU-India. Of these, 45 were based in India and 4 were offshore. The low number of registered offshore providers stands out, given how much Indian trading volume goes to offshore exchanges.

FIU-India also enforces the rules against unregistered platforms. In its 2024–25 annual report, it reported fining one offshore crypto provider ₹9.27 crore for serving Indian users without meeting its legal obligations.

India stayed steadier than most large markets in early 2026. TRM Labs ranked India 4th in the world for retail crypto volume in Q1 2026, at $46.2 billion. Its volume fell 5% from a year earlier, while the United States fell 11% and South Korea 31%. TRM linked India’s resilience to peer-to-peer activity and growth on domestic exchanges.

Crypto Adoption in Europe and Italy

No EU country made the top 10 of Chainalysis’s 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index. Germany ranked 13th, Russia 16th and the United Kingdom 17th, while Ukraine, covered below, ranked 7th. Italy was outside the top 20.

Crypto ownership in the euro area more than doubled in two years. A European Central Bank survey found that 9% of adults owned crypto in 2024, up from 4% in 2022. Ownership rose in almost every euro area country. Rates ranged from 6% in the Netherlands and Germany to 15% in Slovenia.

Most Europeans hold crypto as an investment. Among euro area holders, 64% use it as an investment, 16% for payments, and 19% for both. France has the highest share using crypto for payments, at 25%.

Outside the euro area, ownership is higher in the United Kingdom. In Gemini’s 2025 survey, 24% of UK respondents said they owned crypto, up from 18% in 2024.

Crypto adoption in Italy

Estimates for Italy vary widely because each source measures something different.

The ECB’s 9% puts Italy in line with the euro area average. Ownership rose by at least 7 percentage points from 2022.

Italy also has official data from crypto providers. Until MiCA took effect, providers registered with the Organismo Agenti e Mediatori (OAM) had to report customer data every quarter. In the last report, covering September 30, 2025, providers reported 1.96 million customers, of whom 1.25 million held crypto. Together they held €2.16 billion, an average of €1,731.95 per customer. Younger people made up most of the base: 38% were aged 18 to 29. These figures count customers of each provider, so a person with accounts at two providers may be counted twice.

Italian crypto owners also lean toward regulated products. In Gemini’s survey, 47% of Italian crypto owners said they invest in crypto ETFs, the highest share of the six countries surveyed.

Italy has raised its tax on crypto gains. Gains were taxed at a flat 26% in 2025, and the €2,000 tax-free allowance that used to apply was removed. From January 1, 2026, the rate rose to 33%, under Italy’s 2025 budget law.

MiCA and licensed crypto providers

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) created one licensing system for crypto service providers across the EU. A provider licensed in one member state can serve customers in all of them.

In Italy, MiCA’s transition period ended on June 30, 2026. From July 1, only authorized providers can offer crypto services to EU clients, according to Consob and the Bank of Italy. Providers without authorization must wind down and move customers’ assets to an authorized provider or a self-held wallet.

As of October 29, 2026, ESMA’s register listed 392 authorized crypto-asset service providers across the EU and EEA. Germany had the most, with 122, followed by France (36), the Netherlands (29), Cyprus (25) and Malta (23). Italy had 10, including Banca Sella, Young Platform, Conio and Cryptosmart. All were authorized between April and October 2026.

Euro-based stablecoins are also growing. TRM Labs found that monthly volume in euro stablecoins rose from $69 million in January 2025 to $777 million in March 2026, about 12 times higher. TRM linked this growth partly to the clarity MiCA brought. Euro stablecoins are still small, at under 0.3% of total crypto service volume.

It is too early to say whether MiCA is raising crypto ownership. The licensing and stablecoin data show the market becoming more regulated, but most ownership figures for Europe were collected before most MiCA licenses were granted.

Cryptocurrency Adoption in Ukraine

Ukraine is one of the most crypto-active countries in the world. It ranked 7th on Chainalysis’s 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index, the highest of any European country. The IMF estimates that about 18% of Ukrainians use crypto, and Triple-A estimated about 6.5 million owners in 2023.

Most Ukrainians use crypto to save and move money. The IMF notes that users prefer stablecoins for savings and payments, and Ukraine ranks 6th in the world for both peer-to-peer and cross-border activity on Chainalysis’s index. In 2025, Chainalysis ranked Ukraine 1st once activity was adjusted for population size. Trading has slowed since then. TRM Labs recorded $29.0 billion in retail volume in Q1 2026, down 22% from a year earlier.

Crypto donations and aid

Most crypto donations came in the first months of the full-scale war. After Russia’s invasion in February 2022, almost $55 million in crypto arrived in the first week, according to Triple-A, and more than $100 million by August 2022. Aid for Ukraine, an official donation channel supported by the Ministry of Digital Transformation, raised more than $60 million, including $15.6 million spent on drones.

Crypto also helped deliver aid. In December 2022, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) launched a pilot that paid cash assistance in the USDC stablecoin to displaced people in Kyiv, Lviv and Vinnytsia. Recipients could withdraw the money as cash at MoneyGram locations.

Legal framework

Ukraine passed a Law on Virtual Assets in February 2022, but the market could not fully launch without changes to the Tax and Civil Codes. A new MiCA-based bill, Draft Law No. 10225-d, passed its first reading in September 2025. It would tax crypto profits like securities and let holders sell crypto for a one-time 10% fee during a one-year transition. According to the IMF, the law is expected to take effect in January 2027.

How People Use Cryptocurrency

People use crypto for different reasons depending on where they live.

Investing is the most common use in wealthier markets. In the euro area, most holders use crypto as an investment, and only a small share use it for payments. In the United States, 39% of respondents in Gemini’s 2025 survey said they buy and hold crypto to protect against inflation, up from 32% a year earlier.

In emerging markets, crypto is used more like money. Stablecoins tied to the US dollar help people save and send money where local currencies are weak or bank transfers are expensive. This shows most clearly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where stablecoin transfers have grown quickly while Bitcoin transfers have fallen.

Crypto is also used for online services such as gambling. For figures on this, see Crypto Gambling Statistics.

The Future of Cryptocurrency Adoption

Crypto adoption held up during a hard year for prices. Total crypto market value fell about 50% over the 12 months to June 2026, a loss of $2.1 trillion. Yet the on-chain crypto economy shrank only 1.6%, to $9.4 trillion, according to Chainalysis. People kept using crypto for payments, transfers and savings even as prices dropped.

Growth is coming from emerging markets. Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America grew while the global crypto economy shrank in 2026. Latin America grew 9.8%, led by Brazil, which ranked 1st on Chainalysis’s index with a $252.5 billion crypto economy. In both regions, stablecoins and protection against weak local currencies drove the growth.

Stablecoins are likely to stay at the center of adoption. Chainalysis links their growth to new rules such as the GENIUS Act in the United States and MiCA in the EU, which give users and businesses clearer protections.

Several barriers remain:

• Slower ownership growth. The number of owners still rises each year, but growth has slowed since 2022.
• Taxes. High rates in India and Italy’s 2026 increase raise the cost of holding and trading.
• Licensing. Rules are tightening. Unlicensed providers in the EU had to wind down after June 2026, and South Africa is rewriting its cross-border rules.
• Unfinished laws. Ukraine’s new crypto law is not expected until January 2027, Nigeria’s SEC rules are still in draft, and India has no full legal framework.

This page does not include forecasts of future ownership. None of the sources used here publishes one based on a clear method, so the figures above show only what has already happened.

If you spot an error, let us know so we can review it and date any correction.

Sources

Every figure above traces to one of these.

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