The Crypto Maturity Journey outlines considerations for cryptocurrency product rollout, enabling FIs to evaluate market opportunities while simultaneously addressing regulatory and compliance requirements. Over the last few years, cryptocurrency has become a mainstream asset class, with institutional investments as one factor in boosting adoption around the world. Institutions such as BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale have launched Bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs, providing a more accessible avenue for retail and institutional investors to gain exposure to these digital assets.

In this report, he have to caveat by saying that these figures are lower bound estimates based on inflows to the illicit addresses we’ve identified today. One year from now, these totals will almost certainly be higher, as we identify more illicit addresses and incorporate their historic activity into our estimates. 2023 was a year of recovery for cryptocurrency, as the industry rebounded from the scandals, blowups, and price declines of 2022.

Cryptocurrency usage is growing faster than ever before. Across all cryptocurrencies tracked by Chainalysis, total transaction volume grew to $15.8 trillion in 2021, up 567% from 2020’s totals. Given that roaring adoption, it’s no surprise that more cybercriminals are using cryptocurrency. But the fact that the increase in illicit transaction volume was just 79% — nearly an order of magnitude lower than overall adoption — might be the biggest surprise of all.

The events of this year have made clear that although blockchains are inherently transparent, the industry has room for improvement in this respect. There are opportunities to connect off-chain data on liabilities with on-chain data to provide better visibility, and transparency of DeFi, where all transactions are on-chain, is a standard that all crypto services should strive to achieve. As more and more value is transferred to the blockchain, all potential risks will become transparent, and we will have more complete visibility.

The goal of the index is simple: We combine on-chain data and real-world data to measure which countries are leading the world in grassroots crypto adoption. Grassroots crypto adoption isn’t about which countries have the highest raw transaction volumes — anyone could probably guess that the biggest, wealthiest countries are far ahead there. Instead, we want to highlight the countries where average, everyday people are embracing crypto the most. To do that, we’ve designed the Global Crypto Adoption Index to identify countries where the most people are putting the greatest share of their wealth into cryptocurrency.

2023 was a year of recovery for cryptocurrency, as the industry rebounded from the scandals, blowups, and price declines of 2022. With crypto assets rebounding and market activity growing over the course of 2023, many believe that crypto winter is ending, and a new growth phase may soon be upon us. As always, we have to caveat by saying that these figures are lower bound estimates based on inflows to the illicit addresses we’ve identified today.