CNWE’s transaction volume grew significantly across virtually all cryptocurrencies and service types, but especially on DeFi protocols. An influx of institutional investment, signalled by large transactions, drove most of the growth, though retail activity also increased.
Large institutional cryptocurrency transaction value grew from USD 1.4 billion in July 2020 to USD 46.3 billion in June 2021, at which point it made up more than half of all CNWE activity.
Looking at CNWE’s top five services by transaction volume each month for 2020 shows the impact DeFi has had. DeFi protocols represent three to four of the top five services in most months, with Uniswap, Instadapp, and dydx making frequent appearances. Binance and Coinbase, meanwhile, remain the most popular centralised exchanges.
CNWE’s biggest trading partner is North America, followed by Eastern Asia, Central and Southern Asia, and Eastern Europe. Services contributing to this dynamic include eToro, Bitstamp, and CryptoKitties.
The UK leads the cryptocurrency activity in CNWE by a wide margin at USD 170 billion, 49% of which is from value sent to DeFi protocols. France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland round out the top five. DeFi’s share of all activity is relatively uniform across all countries in CNWE, though we do see some outliers like Albania, where it makes up nearly half of all activity.
Stablecoin usage is consistently between 25% and 30% of all transaction volume for most countries, save for outliers like Monaco, where stablecoins account for 39% of activity. Altcoin usage is similarly consistent at 8% to 11% for most regions. However, we see more variance in the breakdown between Bitcoin and Ethereum or wETH. Combined, Ethereum and wETH are the most popular cryptocurrency in nearly every country.
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