More women signed up to trade as crypto frenzy shifted to smaller towns: WazirX report

New Delhi: Cryptocurrencies ruled the year 2021 and WazirX, one of India largest crypto exchanges, seems to have made the best of it.

WazirX witnessed a record trading volume of over $43 billion in 2021, accounting for 1,735 per cent growth from 2020. It also clocked a significant surge in user sign ups, which crossed a user base of 10 million.

These findings were part of a survey WazirX conducted to gauge the interest in digital assets among its users. It also analysed the data patterns on its platform.


The study showed that almost 51 per cent of the respondents entered cryptos after recommendations from friends and family; 44 per cent of the participants have made up to 10 per cent of their portfolio allocation on crypto tokens.

Every fifth respondent over 50 years allocated more than 50 per cent of his or her portfolio to cryptos, whereas 29 per cent of users aged 18-24 had allocated over half of their funds to digital tokens.

Bitcoin, Tether, Shiba Inu, Dogecoin, WazirX Token and Matic (MATIC) were the most-traded cryptos on the exchange. People beyond the metros and tier-I cities have also invested in cryptos, said the survey. Participation from the smaller cities — including Guwahati, Karnal and Bareilly — rose about 7 times, signaling a growing interest from rural and semi-urban areas.

Interestingly, women traded more in Bitcoin, whereas men traded more in Shiba Inu. About two-thirds of the platform users were below the age of 35. Women users led the surge in new sign ups, with a growth of more than 1,000 per cent, whereas 829 per cent more men signed up than the previous year.

According to the survey results, more than 80 per cent of WazirX users had made profits from their crypto investments as on November 30, 2021.

About 54 per cent of the respondents said they would be interested in pursuing a career in the crypto space, with entrepreneurship, finance and business development being the top career choices.

Nischal Shetty, CEO of WazirX, said the exchange has always been committed to making cryptos accessible to everyone in India, and these findings were to enable a move in that direction. "The audience is evolving and recognising crypto as an emerging alternative asset class. The government’s impetus towards a regulated approach for crypto would put India on the world map with other developed countries dealing in crypto," he added.

On the NFT front, WazirX NFT Marketplace has enabled over 962 creators to mint 12,600 NFTs and sell over 5267 of them worth over 262,896 WRX Tokens, valued around Rs 2.4 crore, in 2021 so far.

India is evolving in terms of crypto adoption. An increasing number of retail and institutional investors are looking forward to innovation in applications of popular altcoins such as Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, and even layer 2 solutions.

According to a Nasscom report, the crypto market in India is expected to grow 2X faster and has the potential to create more than 800,000 jobs by 2030.