They are the star product of investments worldwide.
Europe is now the world's largest crypto economy, with the continent generating more than €870 billion worth of cryptocurrencies for the whole of last year. Central, Northern, and Western European countries accounted for up to 25% of all global cryptocurrency activity.
For example, the United Kingdom registered the highest volume of cryptocurrency trade in the entire continent, with around 145,000 million euros. The United Kingdom was followed by France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, which is among the five economies that generate and move the most money with this type of digital asset.
At the same time as cryptocurrency transaction volumes in Europe began to rise in mid-2021, volumes in East Asia, the former global cryptocurrency transaction capital, entered a steep decline.
Very fast growth
According to several experts in the cryptocurrency business, the growth that this type of asset has experienced throughout Europe is being largely driven by the so-called whales, large institutional investors who transfer huge sums of cryptocurrencies.
The cryptocurrency economy on the European continent started to grow fastest in July 2021. At that time, there was a huge increase in large transactions of an institutional nature, which translates into multiple transfers above 10,000 million euros. in digital money.
The data shows how significant this growth is. During the summer of 2021, large institutional transfers amounted to around €1.2 billion. By October 2021, that number had already ballooned to €39.6 billion, by which time whales accounted for more than half of all cryptocurrency transfer volume in the region.
Most of the big institutional transactions in Europe went to DeFi, or decentralized finance platforms. Defi platforms have been embraced by large investors as they offer numerous ways to stake cryptocurrencies, essentially allowing asset holders to earn money in the long run.
Towards a digital euro?
Digital and contactless payments, and the cryptocurrency business is experiencing its greatest expansion stage and its sweetest moment with more and more users and investors seduced by the large and rapid returns.
That is why, from Brussels, the European Union and the European Central Bank (ECB) have decided to go ahead with the pilot project that explored the benefits and risks of introducing a digital euro, the cryptocurrency version of the community currency. This initiative was born as the logical response to the enormous global expansion of cryptocurrencies, and the notable increase in payments by card and through electronic devices, which grew exponentially during the hardest times of the pandemic. The ECB is convinced that this trend will strengthen the expansion of virtual currencies.
