Portugal shines in adopting decentralized finance
Portugal shines in rankings on the use and adoption of businesses based on cryptocurrencies in Europe. The most recent data place the country among those that are most embracing the new economy, based on decentralized finance (DeFi).
This trend is not only registered in Portugal but is extended to the entire region of Central, North and West Europe, according to the “Report – Geography of Cryptocurrencies in 2021”, by Chainalysis, which analyzes geographic trends on adoption and use of cryptocurrency, released last October. “This region has become the largest cryptocurrency market in the world, and its growth over the past year has been largely driven by institutional investors and other sharks that are migrating to DeFi,” the report says.
Portugal is, for example, a leader in Europe in the use of decentralized finance based on the Ethereum platform – the second most valuable currency in the world after bitcoin. About 70% of the volume of transactions in cryptocurrencies in Portugal was based on Ethereum, in the period between July 2020 and June this year. They followed as transactions based on altcoins (currencies alternative to bitcoin) and stablecoins (stable currencies, which are indexed to an asset or set of assets). Fourth are like bitcoin-based transactions. For the rest, the report emphasizes that “the use of stablecoins is consistently between 25% and 30% of all transaction volume in most countries, except for cases like Monaco, where as stablecoins it increases by 39% of activity activity” .
The report also identifies which countries in the region are driving the greatest cryptocurrency activity. Portugal occupies the ninth position in this ranking, in terms of awarded value, with a global amount of around 30 billion dollars. But it ranks eighth in terms of admitted value via DeFi protocols. The ranking is led by the UK, followed by France and Germany.
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Worldwide, Portugal is even in the top 20 countries that have adopted decentralized finance. Portugal occupies the 18th position in this ranking, behind Brazil, but ahead of the territory of Hong Kong.
Globally, according to the same report, worldwide adoption of cryptocurrencies has soared “more than 880%”, with peer-to-peer platforms to drive the use of cryptocurrencies in emerging markets. “Our data shows that citizens of more and more countries around the world are diving into cryptocurrencies or we are seeing an increase in their adoption”, he says.
The index goal “is to provide a measure of this goal of which countries have the highest levels of cryptocurrency adoption.” The index is designed to “highlight the countries with the highest adoption of cryptocurrency by common people and the use cases relating to transactions and individual economics, to trade discounting and specification”. In this ranking, the country with the highest level of adoption is Vietnam, followed by India and Pakistan. “Our research needed that the reasons for this increase in adoption differ around the world,” the study emphasizes.
“In emerging markets, many are turning to cryptocurrencies to preserve how their savings face currency devaluation, to send and receive remittances and conduct business transactions,” he adds. In North America, Western Europe and East Asia, “on the other hand, adoption last year was driven largely by institutional investment.”