It was one of five Asian markets in the top 10 countries for cryptocurrency gains last year, besides China, Indonesia, India, and the Republic of Korea.
“We can see several upper and middle income countries whose residents appear to have achieved outsized gains. Vietnam, China, Indonesia, and India, for example, all hit over US$1 billion in estimated gains,” it wrote in its “2023 Cryptocurrency Gains by Country” report, released last week.
In the report, Chainalysis estimated worldwide crypto investors achieved total gains of $37.6 billion last year.
While this total is much smaller than the $159.7 billion made during the 2021 bull market, it represents a significant recovery from 2022, which saw estimated losses of $127.1 billion. Interestingly, the total gains estimate for 2023 was lower than 2021, despite crypto asset prices growing at similar rates in each of those years.
“One possible explanation for this could be that investors in 2023 were less likely to convert crypto assets into cash, under the expectation that prices would rise even higher given that they didn’t surpass previous all-time highs at any point in 2023, unlike in 2021,” it commented.
The U.S. led the way in cryptocurrency gains by a wide margin in 2023 at an estimated $9.36 billion. It was followed by the U.K. with $1.39 billion.
China came fourth with $1.15 billion, although cryptocurrency trading and mining activities have been banned in that country since 2021.
In Southeast Asia, in addition to Vietnam, Indonesia ranked fifth with $1.06 billion, the Philippines 20th with $0.5 billion, and Thailand 28th $0.33 billion.
According to Chainalysis, the positive trends of 2023 have carried over into 2024, with notable crypto assets like Bitcoin achieving all-time highs in the wake of Bitcoin ETF approvals and increased institutional adoption.
“If these trends continue, we may see gains more in line with those we saw in 2021. As of March 13, Bitcoin was up 65.4 percent and Ether is up 70.2 percent in 2024,” it said.
For the ranking, Chainalysis used on-chain data to estimate investors’ cryptocurrency gains based on movements of crypto assets in and out of services where they can be on or off-ramped into fiat currency.
