U.S. leads the world in crypto interest, but factoring population data shrinks the gap

A poll from The Block's Larry Cermak found the U.S. is leading the world in crypto interest, but when the populations of different countries are taken into account, the playing field levels, pointing to crypto as a worldwide force.

The Block analyzed exchange data, and found the highest traffic on cryptocurrency exchanges is coming from the U.S., accounting for 24.5% of the total traffic.

Japan trailed with 10%, and South Korea, Indonesia and India rounded out the top five. Together they generated about half of the world’s crypto exchange traffic.

However, the data is not perfectly representative, since traffic from countries that censor crypto activity by blocking exchanges, like China, can be dampened. People in those places must use VPNs, spoofing an IP address and originating country.

When The Block compared each country’s traffic to its population, it found the regions in which crypto garnered the highest interest, with North America leading the pack.

The Block reported a positive correlation between GDP per capita and traffic when population was taken into account, meaning the data shows poorer countries aren’t trading crypto as much as wealthier countries. Further breakdown of the data can be found in The Block's analysis post.