Nearly 25% of Adults With Internet Access in Asia Might Own Crypto, Report Says

Almost 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 on Friday.

The report, based on a survey of 4,020 people in 10 different countries and extrapolated to the wider APAC region, also suggested that crypto adoption is driven by a lack of access to traditional financial services. Meanwhile, stablecoins are adopted by almost 18% of adults with Internet access in emerging markets in the region.

How quickly adoption continues to grow depends on how easy it is to use the digital asset in everyday life, said the report, published earlier by CoinDesk. Consensus: the Hong Kong conference next February.

“APAC Digital Asset Adoption 2025 finds 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 stated 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. About 400 people from each country were surveyed. It is also focused on adults between the ages of 18 and 64 who have access to the internet and had heard of crypto.

One reason for the slow adoption could be that traditional financial services — digital bank accounts, remittances, even bill payments — are relatively easy across the region, compared to the “complexity of wallets, exchanges and token transfers,” the report said.

However, an evolving regulatory regime in various countries is enabling growth and adoption, the report said.

More than 70% of adults in emerging economies – such as the UAE, India, China, the Philippines and Thailand – say regulations are important, the report said. That figure drops to around 66% in places 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 gap – as a proxy for confidence and signaling that participation is legitimate,” said the report.

“In mature markets, where broad consumer protection already exists, regulation functions less as a bridge to access and more as a means of risk management.”