India is leader in crypto adoption for second year running – report

India continues to lead the way in the global adoption of cryptocurrencies as it has earned the title two years in a row.

In a report from blockchain analytics company Chainalysis published on Wednesday (September 11), the world’s most populous country marked the highest in the overall index ranking for crypto adoption.

The report tracks approaches to the digital asset through sub-categories, with 151 countries having been analyzed.

The Central and Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) area dominated the top of the board, with seven of the top 20 countries located in the region.

Since the rise of cryptocurrency, India has been quick to bring in legislation around the subject matter and has routinely been tough in its stance.

India enforces a tough stance on the cryptocurrency industry

It was in 2021 when the legislative initiative titled ‘The Cryptocurrency Bill’ was introduced to regulate the market.

A year later, in 2022, the government imposed a 30% tax and 1% TDS on gains from virtual digital assets or cryptocurrencies which they announced in the Union Budget. This means all profits from selling crypto are taxed at the flat 30% rate.

The South Asian country’s authorities have been strong on the repercussions too, with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) having issued show-cause notices to nine offshore cryptocurrency exchanges in December 2023 for non-compliance with local rules.

The research lead behind the report, Eric Jardine, spoke to Reuters about how India has clinched the number one spot again: “ India has also got a fairly wide spread level of adoption across different assets of crypto despite restrictions, implying new participants to crypto would have been participating via services that were not banned.

“Now we’ve started to see some of those restrictions get rolled back, for example with Binance, which is probably just going to amplify adoption in the country.”

The crypto exchange was hit with a fine of 188.2 million rupees (around $2.25 million) in June, just a month after it had registered with the FIU in hopes of resuming operations. Another exchange, called KuChoin, registered with the watchdog in March and had a penalty of 3.45 million rupees.

Featured Image: Photo by Aditya Kumar on Unsplash

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