India’s Crypto Community to Swell to 156 Million Users in 2023, Leave US, UK Behind: Report

The crypto community in India is set to surpass the US, UK, Russia, and Japan in terms of adoption this year. As per a recent report by Statista, India's crypto community is expected to envelop over 156 million users by the end of 2023. The lack of a uniform and high yielding banking system is reportedly driving educated, middle-class Indians towards exploring other fintech avenues, especially for investment purposes. As per analytical reports shared by Indian crypto exchanges in December last year, Indians aged between 18-40 make for maximum number of crypto investors.

The crypto sector is expected to churn out revenues worth $3.3 billion (roughly Rs. 27,279 crore) in 2023. By 2027, this amount is likely to explode to $5.92 billion (roughly Rs. 48,940 crore) with a projected adoption growth of 15.49 percent.

India ranked second after the US on the list of the top five countries with the largest crypto market. Japan, UK, and Russia grabbed the third, fourth, and fifth positions on the list, respectively.

As per a recent KuCoin report, India had over 115 million crypto investors, making for 15 percent of its massive population as of August 2022.

In the next four years, the number of crypto owners in India is estimated to grow by 22 percent and reach 191 million, the Statista report said.

The adoption of cryptocurrencies for the purpose of holding and trading is the highest in India's capital, Delhi. Bengaluru, India's own Silicon Valley, also holds a significant percentage of crypto holders residing in the country, CoinSwitch had said in a report in December 2022.

Memecoins Dogecoin and Shiba Inu had emerged among popular cryptocurrencies in India alongside Bitcoin, Tether, Ether, Polygon, and Tron, WazirX had said in its year-ender report for 2022.

The pandemic-induced economic slowdown nudged Indians to turn their attention towards experimenting with crypto. Between 2017 and 2022, India's crypto adoption had risen by 760 percent.

The government of India is working on forming a framework to govern the crypto sector, where financial transactions are largely anonymous and could be misused for money laundering and terror financing.

On March 8, India imposed its anti-money laundering laws to apply on crypto trade activities in order to control crypto crime on an international level.