Cryptocurrency update: Cardano up by 13.5%; Polkadot gains 10.6%

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Bitcoin, the biggest and oldest cryptocurrency, gained by  4.30% to $47,516.00 levels on August 20.  Ethereum, the second largest virtual token, also increased by 5.97% to trade at $3,230.39. Almost all of the top 10  cryptocurrencies were trading in green, except for Tether USDT and USD Coin which declined by 0.05% each. In terms of percentage gain, Cardano and Polkadot were the highest, with 13.52% and 10.67% respectively.

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India ranked second in the global cryptocurrency adoption index

India records second in the global cryptocurrency adoption index only behind Vietnam, according to the 2021 Global Crypto adoption index by blockchain data platform Chainalysis. The worldwide adoption of cryptocurrency has grown by 2300% since the third quarter of 2019 and over 881% in the last year.

The ranking was based on three metrics including Peer to Peer (P2P) exchange trading volume and value received. India was followed by Pakistan and Ukraine at rank three and four respectively. The US and China’s ranking dipped from sixth to eight and fourth to thirteenth respectively.

The report attributes this drop in ranking to falling P2P volumes in the two countries compared to worldwide volumes.

Most of the top 20 countries are developing nations like Tanzania, Togo and Kenya. The report said that many emerging markets face significant currency devaluation, driving residents to buy cryptocurrency on P2P platforms in order to preserve their savings. Others in these areas use cryptocurrency to carry out international transactions, either for individual remittances or for commercial use cases, such as purchasing goods to import and sell.