Nearly a quarter of adults with internet access could own cryptocurrency in the Asia-Pacific region, a report jointly produced by Protocol Theory and CoinDesk said Friday.
The report, based on a survey of 4,020 people across 10 different countries and extrapolated to the broader APAC region, further suggests that crypto adoption is driven by 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 daily life, said the report, released ahead of CoinDesk’s Consensus Conference: Hong Kong next February.
“APAC Digital Asset Adoption 2025 reveals that participation is now shaped by usability, integration and inclusion rather than speculation,” the report said. “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 indicates that half of adults aware of cryptocurrency intend to use it 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. Around 400 people from each country were interviewed. It also focused on adults aged 18 to 64 who have access to the internet and have already heard of crypto.
One reason for this slow adoption could be that traditional financial services – digital bank accounts, remittances, and even bill payments – are relatively easy in the region, compared to the “complexity of token wallets, exchanges and transfers,” the report said.
However, the development of a regulatory regime in different countries promotes growth and adoption, the report said.
More than 70% of adults in emerging economies – such as the United Arab Emirates, India, China, the Philippines and Thailand – believe regulations are important, according to the report. This figure drops to around 66% in countries like Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore, and falls below 50% in Japan.
“This divergence reflects different stages of market confidence. In emerging economies, regulation fills an institutional void by acting as a confidence indicator and signaling that participation is legitimate,” the report said.
“In mature markets, where extensive consumer protections already exist, regulation functions less as a bridge to access and more as a means of risk management.”
