US Crypto Adoption on the Rise Following ‘Regulatory Momentum’: Chainalysis

The United States has climbed to second place in the Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, jumping from fourth position last year as regulatory clarity around Bitcoin ETFs and stablecoins drove institutional demand to new heights.

Meanwhile, India retained its crown for the third consecutive year, maintaining dominance across all four metrics tracked by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

The top 10 countries by overall crypto adoption are India, the United States, Pakistan, Vietnam, Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia, Ukraine, the Philippines, and Russia.

Ashish Singhal, co-founder of CoinSwitch, told Decrypt he’s “incredibly proud” to see India at the top of the Global Crypto Adoption Index, crediting “millions of young, curious, digitally savvy Indians” for “shaping the future of finance.”

The annual index, which tracks grassroots crypto adoption across 151 countries, reveals a global landscape where regulatory momentum in developed markets is colliding with utility-driven adoption in emerging economies.

Chainalysis overhauled its methodology to better capture today’s market structure by dropping a retail-DeFi sub-index and adding an institutional activity lens that counts transfers over $1 million.

The report found that American institutions leverage regulatory clarity for Bitcoin ETFs while Asia-Pacific populations use crypto for remittances and financial access that traditional banks cannot provide, despite restrictive regulations.

APAC’s crypto adoption wave

Asia-Pacific emerged as the fastest-growing region with transaction volumes surging 69% year-over-year to $2.36 trillion, up from last year’s 27% growth as India, Pakistan, and Vietnam drove adoption across centralized and decentralized platforms.

Kim Grauer, Chief Economist at Chainalysis, told Decrypt that “remittances, savings, and investment needs can drive crypto demand,” in emerging markets with fragmented regulation, such as India, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

“Grassroots crypto adoption will tend to follow where these real-world needs exist and are pressing, even where regulatory conditions are not facilitative,” she said.

Research by Indian think-tanks such as the Esya Center suggests that policy measures including the Tax Deducted at Source regime and blocking of offshore exchanges, “have not materially dampened underlying crypto engagement” across the country’s massive user base, Grauer said.

“Renewed institutional interest”

North America’s 49% growth, compared to 42% last year, reflected “renewed institutional interest, bolstered by the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs and increased regulatory clarity,” according to the report.

“Market cycles can affect speculative demand for crypto across both retail and institutional categories,” Grauer explained when asked which model would prove more durable during bearish conditions.

Cyclical fluctuations will have less impact where crypto meets basic economic needs, Grauer added, noting that “institutional innovation can pave the way to new financial products that serve retail needs.”

Stablecoins rising

Stablecoin adoption rose globally, with USDT processing over $1 trillion monthly while USDC ranged from $1.24 trillion to $3.29 trillion in monthly volume, according to the report..

“With the passage of the GENIUS Act, the U.S. has positioned itself to lead in fiat-backed stablecoin regulation without compromising on compliance, consumer protection, or financial oversight,” Nass Eddequiouaq, co-founder and CEO of Bastion, told Decrypt.

“Because of the GENIUS Act, we’ve seen more demand in the first half of 2025 than we saw in the two years before that—and that was before it had even passed,” Eddequiouaq said.

The regulatory clarity has enabled payment processors like Stripe, Mastercard, and Visa to launch products leveraging stablecoins, while banks such as Citi are mulling their own stablecoin launches.

Bitcoin remained the primary gateway into crypto, according to Chainalysis, accounting for over $4.6 trillion in fiat inflows between July 2024 and June 2025, more than double the next-highest category of Layer-1 tokens at $3.8 trillion.

The U.S. dominated global fiat on-ramping with over $4.2 trillion in volume, more than four times the next-highest country.

Asked about the vulnerability of U.S. adoption to ETF demand shifts, Grauer said that institutional interest extends beyond crypto as an asset class to “moving traditional financial services onto blockchain-based infrastructure.”

These developments, Grauer argued, suggest “structural changes that endure market fluctuations” beyond cyclical speculation.