Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies take more and more place in the world. In a context of generalized crisis, derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, this emerging market has sought spaces between the financial systems of the countries. The clear example is Europe, positioned as the largest crypto-asset economy on the planet.
According to the latest report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the rapid growth and acceptance of decentralized finance (DeFi) is the reason why, in a matter of a year , the Central, Northern and Western Europe (CNWE) region received more than $ 1 trillion in cryptocurrencies, or 25% of all global activity.
The firm highlights that the decrease in activity in East Asia, as a result of China’s bans, also increased the presence of the cryptocurrency market in Europe, and that the volume of transactions rose “significantly” in all assets and types of service.
DeFi protocols: driven in Europe by institutional investments
DeFi protocols were notably boosted thanks to the increasing institutional investments in the last year. According to the data, most of the large institutional-level transfers were made to decentralized platforms, especially those created on Ethereum .
“Given that, it’s not surprising that most of these large institutional transfers have been made in Ethereum and Wrapped Ethereum (wETH), an ERC-20 token of equivalent value to Ethereum commonly used in DeFi protocols ”.
Chainalyisis, a firm specialized in blockchain analysis.
DeFi protocols represented three to four of the five services most used by companies for cryptocurrency trading, with Uniswap, Instadapp and Dydx being the platforms with the most recurrence in the table.
When talking Of centralized exchanges, the giants Binance and Coinbase stand out, which “remain the most popular.”
And, when it comes to figures, the value of institutional transactions in cryptocurrencies grew from USD 1.4 billion in July 2020 to USD 46.3 billion in June 2021, more than half of all activity in the region.
As CriptoNoticias reported, Uniswap is a leader among decentralized exchanges (DEX), even though it is still far from its maximum of transactions registered in May.
The five countries powerful in cryptocurrency economy
Between The nations with the greatest presence of digital assets are the United Kingdom, the leader, with USD 170 billion dollars traded in cryptocurrencies, of which 49% came from decentralized protocols.
Those numbers make sense, remembering that a few months ago, the UK regulator banned certain operations from Binance, one of the largest centralized exchanges in the ecosystem, as reported by CryptoNews.
Returning to the Chainalysis report, among the European countries with the most activity are also France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, according to company measurements, which highlights:
“DeFi’s participation in all activity is relatively uniform in all CNWE countries, although we see some outliers like Albania, where it accounts for almost half of all activity ”.
Chainalyisis, firm specialized in blockchain analysis.
Which cryptocurrencies operate the most in Europe?
The firm detailed that stablecoins They represent 25% to 30% of all the volume of operations in most of the countries of that region, except Monaco, where they represent 39% of the activity. Altcoins, meanwhile, range from 8% to 11% in most of those countries.
But the leaders, in short, are Bitcoin and Ethereum:
“We see more variation in the breakdown between Bitcoin and Ethereum or wETH. Combined, Ethereum and wETH are the most popular cryptocurrencies in almost all countries, ”they say from the company.
Only in the United Kingdom, bitcoin represents 27% of the total volume of transactions, and ether and wETH 40%. In Germany it is similar: BTC occupies 28% of the volume and ETH-wETH, 36%.
France, without However, it dedicates only 20% of its transaction volume to bitcoin, while ethereum and wETH, 45%. “It is likely that this figure is related to the slightly higher rate. high volume of transactions from France that goes to DeFi protocols ”, they explained.
“However, in general, although there are small differences between the Exact breakdown of individual country activity, one thing is clear: CNWE has become the world’s largest cryptocurrency market, and its growth over the past year was largely driven by institutional investors and other whales in DeFi. ” .
Chainalyisis, firm specialized in blockchain analysis.
