Turkish crypto users continue leading the grassroots adoption of virtual currencies in the Middle East, but uptake in some major regional markets appears to have ebbed in the past year.  

These are key takeaways gleaned from the 2024 edition of the Global Crypto Adoption Index, a ranking of 151 countries published on Sept. 11 by US-based blockchain data company Chainalysis, which as recently as 2022 had rated the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as the world’s fastest-growing crypto market. The region currently ranks as the seventh-largest crypto market globally, accounting for 7.5% of the world’s total transaction volume.

India topped the global adoption index this year, but Turkey ranked 11th and captured $137 billion in value received. After ranking 12th globally last year, this is the latest evidence of Turkey’s ongoing embrace of digital assets as the country has grappled with runaway inflation. Turkey was also the only MENA country to crack the top 20 in the index, which is based on data collected between June 2023 to July 2024.  

Crucially, other regional markets formerly exhibiting strong crypto adoption notched significant declines in the 2024: Iran plummeted to 130th this year after ranking 28th in 2023. It’s still unclear what drove this precipitous plunge, but Iran has come under scrutiny since Oct. 7 for channeling funds to Hamas using crypto, and there have been signs of a crackdown on illegal crypto mining in the country.