Transcript
A (0:00)
The amount of people who want crypto who are actively interested in it or passively interested in it, as we say, far exceeds the amount of people who currently have it. So even though adoption is very healthy in apac, it's poised for some really significant growth.
B (0:22)
We all want to believe in something. In Chinese, belief also means trust. We want to trust our systems and each other so we can build a future beyond what we know. Join us at Consensus Hong Kong, where belief becomes real. We are one month away from Consensus Hong Kong, and we are taking a closer look at crypto in the region. COINDESK recently commissioned protocol theory to do some deeper research on adoption in apac. Alistair Rennie joins us now to unpack some of the key findings. All right, Alistair, the report's called the People Powered Crypto Movement in apac. I want to dive into the nitty gritty of it, but first I gotta ask you, what was the most surprising thing you found while you were putting this data together?
A (1:04)
I think there were three big surprises. Can I do three? Can I get away with three?
B (1:07)
Yeah, yeah, you could do three.
A (1:08)
Cool, cool. Okay. So I think the first one for me is that adoption in APAC is not being driven by a lot of the things that we maybe focus on a lot in the industry, things like institutional investment, regulation, even the tech itself. And some of our core narratives is being driven by these underlying beliefs in the future of crypto. And that I thought was not just surprising, but actually really inspiring. The second big surprise was the extent to which adoption is being led by emerging markets, countries like Thailand, India, Philippines, compared to developed markets like Japan and Singapore and Hong Kong. That was a big surprise. And the third big surprise was actually the amount of unmet demand that exists in this region. So the amount of people who want crypto who are actively interested in it or passively interested in it, as we say, far exceeds the amount of people who currently have it. So even though adoption is very healthy in APAC is poised for some a really significant growth.
B (2:21)
Well, tell me if this is true for you. I mean, you look at the data much closely than I can, but this sounds like the total opposite of what we're experiencing over in North America.
A (2:32)
Yeah, there are some real differences. And that, again, fits into that narrative of developed markets versus emerging markets. Right. What we typically see in emerging markets is there's this much bigger appetite for tech. Okay. So you've got folks in these countries are relying on tech a lot more and in different ways than a lot of folks in these more developed markets. There's some other really interesting differences as well. For example, in developed markets, including America, people's optimism financially is a lot lower in terms of the economy and their personal finances than it is in emerging markets, which is, I think is really, really interesting. Right, because we've got lower incomes in these markets and there's a whole host of, of different challenges. But I think the thing is in what we're seeing in more developed economies is that people have a lot more debt. So the amount of debt per person in developed markets is like orders of magnitudes, magnitudes higher than it is in emerging markets because they have less access to credit for. Apart from everything else, which is interesting in of itself when you talk about crypto and access to financial services, but essentially in emerging markets, they're less burdened by debt and they are much more positive about their. When you talk to people, like, based on the data, this is. When you, when you talk to people in emerging markets, they're really positive or they're much more positive about the future than folks in developed markets like America.
