DeFi drives North America crypto growth says Chainalysis

The North American cryptocurrency market has grown on the back of a DeFi boom to 18.4% of all global crypto activity according to Chainalysis’ Geography of Cryptocurrency report.

According to the analysis conducted by Chainalysis – the cryptocurrency, blockchain, software, services and market intelligence company – the monthly volume of cryptocurrency transactions in North America grew by more than 1,000% year-on-year.

During the period between July 2020 and May 2021, transactions grew from $14.4bn to $164bn, preceding a slight dip in June 2021.

The Chainalysis report attributed this growth to an increase in decentralised finance (DeFi) in North America. DeFi accounted for 37% of overall transaction volume during the period analysed.

During this period only Central and Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) and Central and North Western Europe had a higher share of transactions than in North America.

However, unlike DeFi in CSAO, North American DeFi has been advanced by retail-sized transactions of less than $10,000.

Furthermore, DeFi services in North America now constitute nine of the 25 most popular cryptocurrency websites and the largest cryptocurrency website by transaction volume in the continent.

Despite all these positives, North America’s crypto market has had some serious issues with ransomware attacks. The North American market experienced the most ransomware attacks of any of the markets during the period studied.

North American users sent approximately $131m worth of cryptocurrency to ransomware attackers between July 2020 and June 2021. This total was more than double the next largest amount of money given to ransomware attackers from Western Europe.

The threat from ransomware to North American consumers prompted US President Joe Biden to issue a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin that unless Russia could limit ransomware attacks – which primarily originate from Russia – that it would be escalated from merely a criminal issue into a national security issue.