Report shows NFTs leading Central and South Asia’s crypto adoption
Crypto adoption has grown significantly over the past two years. It is one of the fastest growing trends ever experienced in the market, which is expected to continue over time. A look at the growth trend reveals some unlikely drivers of this adoption. The NFT space is one that also gained prominence in the past year, and according to the data, NFTs have contributed significantly to the use of crypto in some parts of the world.
CSAO embraces crypto through NFTs
Central and South Asia and Oceania (CSAO) have embraced crypto more in recent years. But where other parts of the world are driving their adoption through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin, this part of the world has seemingly embraced non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Between June 2021 and June 2022, the crypto trading volume from this part of the world was almost 1 trillion dollars. More interesting was the percentage of this that was made up of NFT’s trading volume. Chainalysis reports that NFTs account for 58% of the $932 billion recorded during this time.
The same was the case for the web traffic that flowed towards crypto from this part of the world. Where NFTs accounted for the total web traffic, blockchain games came out to about 21%. However, instead of the usual profit-chasing seen in other markets, CSAO crypto users seem to have moved towards entertainment.
NFT makes up more than half of crypto traffic | Source: Chainalysis
The growth of blockchain games in this region is also attributed to the low minimum wages in the countries. In places like the Philippines, players can often earn more than they would in a month by playing blockchain games with a play-to-earn feature.
As the third largest crypto market in the world, the numbers from CSAO are ultimately very important for the adoption of digital assets. Given this, the direction they are driving also points to where most of the money ends up.
Total market cap falls below $900 billion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com
NFTs and blockchain games were not the only drivers of crypto adoption in the countries. Remittance payments have also become increasingly important in these regions, with remittance payments accounting for 5% and 9.6% of the gross domestic products of Vietnam and the Philippines, respectively. The low fees and ease of transfers have helped drive the crypto transfer markets in these countries as well.
Stablecoins are of great importance in these transfer markets since they retain their value during transfer until it reaches the recipient. Similarly, ETH/WETH has also featured heavily in the list of most traded cryptocurrencies, which also follows NFT, blockchain gaming and money transfers in these countries.
Featured image from Entrepreneur, chart from TradingView.com
follow Best Owie on Twitter for market insights, updates and the occasional funny tweet…
