From No. 2 to No. 6: PH falters in global crypto ranking

MANILA  -The Philippines slid by four notches to sixth spot in top cryptocurrency adoption list across the world as other countries grew faster but the ranking remained high due to play-to-earn games that had risen to popularity during the pandemic.

In the fourth annual Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index, the country was knocked down from second ranking in the previous report, outpaced by India, Nigeria, Vietnam, the United States and Ukraine. Rounding up the top 10 are Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil and Thailand.

“When countries fall in the index, it doesn’t mean adoption in that country is shrinking, but rather adoption may not be growing as fast as other countries. Philippines in the top 10 still demonstrates a very high level of grass roots adoption in the region,” Chainalysis told the Inquirer. The index ranked 154 countries, considering the transaction volumes of these digital assets carrying value.

“In the Philippines, where many want to speculate on new assets, make extra cash and connect digitally with others, play-to-earn games were able to gain an enormous foothold,” the New York-based blockchain analysis firm explained.

About 25 percent of Filipinos have joined play-to-earn games, Chainalysis said previously. It noted that the Philippines made up about 40 percent of the player base of Axie Infinity—a game that has gained traction at the height of the pandemic—at one point.

“The games act as an entry point into the wider digital asset economy, and now thousands of Filipinos have crypto wallets they can use for other purposes,” Chainalysis said. Manila also accounts for 20 percent of the crypto-related web traffic, according to its monitoring.

The firm found out that low middle-income (LMI) countries— including the Philippines, Nigeria and Ukraine, which are part of the top 10–are driving the adoption of cryptocurrency.

“This could be extremely promising for crypto’s future prospects. LMI countries are often countries on the rise, with dynamic, growing industries and populations,” Chainalysis explained.

Blockchain Council of the Philippines president Donald Lim recently said  the Philippines could be Asia’s blockchain capital by 2028 given the increasing adoption of nonfungible tokens, which are a kind of cryptocurrency.