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The Philippines slipped to ninth place in the newly released Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, down from its previous 8th position, as countries across Asia continue to expand both retail and institutional cryptocurrency engagement.
2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index
The sixth annual Index, published on September 2, 2025, assesses grassroots crypto adoption across 151 countries.Â
The Philippines now ranks ninth, behind Ukraine in eighth and ahead of the Russian Federation in tenth. While still among the world’s top 10 markets for grassroots crypto use, the country’s ranking continues a downward trend after peaking at second place in 2022.
According to the report, the Philippines remains strong in retail activity, placing sixth globally in retail centralized service value and ninth in overall centralized service value. However, it lags in decentralized finance (DeFi), ranking 13th in value received, indicating limited adoption compared to peers.
In this year’s rankings, India retains its top spot across all four metrics, followed by the United States, which climbed to second place amid increased institutional activity and clearer regulatory frameworks.Â
Pakistan came in third, then Vietnam and Brazil, while Nigeria and Indonesia took sixth and seventh spots respectively.
In addition, the report also highlighted that in the 12 months ending June 2025, the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region recorded the fastest growth in on-chain cryptocurrency activity, with transaction volume rising 69% year-on-year from $1.4 trillion to $2.36 trillion.Â
The surge was led by strong adoption in major markets such as India, Vietnam, and Pakistan. Latin America followed with 63% growth, while Sub-Saharan Africa posted a 52% increase, highlighting how rising everyday use cases and institutional activity in the Global South are driving global crypto adoption.
PH Previous Rankings
2021
The Philippines ranked 15th worldwide in the 2021 Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index, placing 10th in overall on-chain value received and 9th in retail value received, but just 80th in peer-to-peer trade volume.Â
Despite the lower P2P ranking, the country was highlighted as one of the top adopters in the Central & Southern Asia and Oceania region, reflecting strong grassroots use of cryptocurrency through centralized and retail platforms.
2022
The Philippines ranked 2nd globally in the 2022 Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index, behind Vietnam and ahead of Ukraine, India, and the United States. The country’s ranking was noted to reflect strong grassroots cryptocurrency use despite the ongoing market downturn.Â
The report highlighted that most top-ranking countries are lower-middle-income nations, with the Philippines standing out for high ownership and usage rates, widespread NFT adoption, and significant play-to-earn activity from games like Axie Infinity.Â
2023
In 2023, the Philippines fell to 6th place as adoption slowed amid the bear market and the collapse of FTX.Â
The country’s crypto inflows dropped from over $8 billion in June 2022 to under $5 billion by June 2023, with a significant share of activity tied to gaming and gambling platforms.Â
Despite the decline, Chainalysis noted that the Philippines remains a major player in the Central & Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) region, alongside India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Thailand, which all ranked in the global top 10.
2024
The Philippines ranked 8th in the 2024 Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index which was noted to reflect slower growth compared to other emerging markets. However, the analysis stated that the country remains active in centralized services, retail crypto usage, and DeFi participation.Â
Chainalysis noted that while adoption in the Philippines is still strong, its momentum has lagged behind regional peers amid global market shifts and increasing competition in crypto engagement.
What is the Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Report
The Global Crypto Adoption Report, released annually by blockchain research firm Chainalysis, tracks and compares grassroots cryptocurrency adoption across countries.
Its Global Crypto Adoption Index ranks 154 nations by evaluating how people use different crypto services, using five weighted sub-indexes
Index MethodologyÂ
The report noted that Chainalysis’ methodological updates for the 2025 Index include the removal of a retail DeFi sub-index, which previously skewed toward niche behavior, in favor of a newly introduced “institutional activity” sub-index, focusing on on-chain transfers exceeding $1 million, to better capture the growing role of large-scale professional participants in crypto market
It used a composite score derived from four sub-indices: retail-sized value received by centralized services, overall centralized service value received, DeFi protocol value received, and institutional-sized transfers. Chainalysis noted that these elements are adjusted by population and purchasing power before being combined to determine final rankings.
This article is published on BitPinas: Philippines Slides Again in 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, Now Ranked 9th
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