89% of India’s crypto investors fall in 18-35 age group; Delhi tops in investments: Study

Crypto adoption in India is being driven primarily by the GenZ and millennial population. An overwhelming majority of crypto investors in the country fall in the 18-25 (45 per cent) and 26-35 (34 per cent) age groups, found a 2022 analysis by homegrown crypto exchange CoinSwitch. 

Crypto, truly, is a young person’s asset class, with just 8 per cent of retail investors above 45 years of age. 

In 2022, which brought about a bloodbath for the global crypto industry, Indian investors shied away from panic selling, and instead, held on to their investments. New investors too started building their crypto portfolio in the bear market to complement their equity investments. 

Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s most valuable crypto, continues to be the most popular token in India, with 12.12 per cent of investments going towards it. This is followed by investments in DOGE (11.54 per cent), Ethereum (9.43 per cent), Shiba Inu (6.92 per cent), and Polygon (4.3 per cent). Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are meme coins, which are inspired by internet memes, and are more volatile than the rest. 

“India set aside 40 per cent of its crypto investments on top dollar CRE8 coins and DeFi utility tokens in 2022, and only about 6 per cent in metaverse tokens. In fact, a greater share of investments (~8 per cent) was made on Ethereum alternatives (Layer1 networks that rival the blue-chip smart-contract chain) than metaverse tokens,” CoinSwitch revealed in its report. 

Delhi ranked on top in terms of crypto investments (by value) in the country. This was followed by the IT hubs of Bangalore and Hyderabad. “Jaipur has the highest crypto adoption among tier-2 and tier-3 cities, followed by Lucknow and Pune,” CoinSwitch stated. 

Crypto, meanwhile, continues to be a male-dominated sector, with only 8 per cent of CoinSwitch’s 19 million users being women in 2022. A prior analysis by global crypto exchange KuCoin had pegged India’s overall crypto population at 115 million, with 52 per cent of them investing in the asset class to generate a passive income. 

Also Read: Budget 2023: CoinSwitch expects govt to incentivise crypto users and 'reduce the burden of taxes'