Nearly a quarter of adults with Internet access could own cryptocurrencies in the Asia Pacific region, a report jointly prepared by Protocol Theory and CoinDesk indicated on Friday.
The report, based on a survey of 4,020 people in 10 different countries and extrapolated to the broader APAC region, further suggested that cryptocurrency adoption is driven by a lack of access to traditional financial services. Meanwhile, stablecoins are adopted by nearly 18% of adults with internet access in the region’s emerging markets.
How quickly adoption continues to grow will depend on how easy it is to use digital assets in everyday life, according to the report, released ahead of CoinDesk’s Consensus: Hong Kong conference next February.
“APAC Digital Asset Adoption 2025 finds that participation is now determined by usability, integration and inclusion rather than speculation,” the report says. “Stablecoins, remittances and tokenized assets are emerging as the practical foundations of a digital economy that operates across borders and devices, supported by regulatory frameworks designed to enable, rather than restrict, participation.”
According to the survey, the report indicated that half of cryptocurrency-aware adults intend to use them in the next year, despite marginal adoption over the past year. The survey was conducted in India, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Australia and Japan, with the United Arab Emirates included as a comparable market. Approximately 400 people from each country were surveyed. It also targeted adults between the ages of 18 and 64 who have access to the internet and had previously heard of cryptocurrencies.
One reason for the slow adoption could be that traditional financial services – digital bank accounts, remittances and even bill payments – are relatively easy across the region, compared to the “complexity of wallets, exchanges and token transfers,” according to the report.
However, a developing regulatory regime in different countries is enabling growth and adoption, according to the report.
More than 70% of adults in emerging economies (such as the United Arab Emirates, India, China, the Philippines and Thailand) say regulations are important, according to the report. That figure drops to around 66% in places like Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore, and drops below 50% in Japan.
“This divergence reflects different stages of market confidence. In emerging economies, regulation fills an institutional void, acting as a proxy for confidence and signaling that participation is legitimate,” the report says.
“In mature markets, where extensive consumer protections already exist, regulation functions less as a bridge to access and more as a means to manage risk.”
