A cryptocurrency craze seems to have engulfed India. According to a study published recently, there are over 10.5 crore cryptocurrency investors in India with investments of over $10 billion.
The investment has grown almost 10 times in the last one and half year. In April 2020, the amount was even lower than $1 billion at $923 million, the study conducted by crypto research and intelligence business CREBACO shows.
Comparing the data with India's total population shows that 7.9% Indians currently own cryptocurrencies. The number of cryptocurrency investors is much higher than the total count of mutual fund investors. As of September-end 2021, there were only 2.6 crore unique mutual fund investors in India.
According to a different study published in October, India has the largest number of cryptocurrency owners in the world followed by the US and Russia. According to the report by BrokerChoose, India ranks fifth in terms of crypto ownership by percentage of population at 7.3%. This index is topped by Ukraine at 12.73%, followed by Russia at 11.9%, Kenya at 8.5% and the US at 8.3%.
India figures among the top few in almost every cryptocurrency index. The country ranked second out of 154 countries on the 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index released by Chainalysis in August this year.
This is despite the fact that there is no clarity on the legal status of cryptocurrencies in India. The government is currently working on a bill to regulate the virtual currencies.
