Thanks to DeFi, Europe has become the world's largest crypto economy.

According to a recent Chainalysis study, Central, Northern, and Western Europe (CNWE) has surpassed the United States as the world's largest crypto economy. Over the past year, the area has received more than $1 trillion in cryptocurrencies, accounting for 25% of all worldwide activity. In previous year's poll, CNWE came in second. However, Europe's phenomenal growth, which began in July 2020, has propelled it to the top this year.

Although retail activity grew, institutional investors drove the majority of the transactions, with DeFi accounting for half of all transactions.

The number of transactions on CNWE increased dramatically across all cryptocurrencies and service kinds, but particularly on DeFi protocols. The increase, according to Chainalysis, was mostly due to an infusion of institutional investment, as shown by big transactions. Since July 2020, there has been an upsurge in crypto transactions totaling more than $10 million.

Institutional cryptocurrency transactions increased in value from $1.4 billion in July 2020 to $46.3 billion in June 2021. During this time, the United Kingdom had the highest value of crypto transactions in Europe, totaling $170 billion. DeFi protocols got 49 percent of the total. Henry Updegrave, senior content marketing manager at Chainalysis, remarked on the increase. “The United Kingdom's development is mostly driven by increasing institutional investment, with large-scale transfers accounting for the majority of the country's transaction volume,” he told Cointelegraph.

The majority of big institutional-sized transactions moved to DeFi platforms in the past 12 months, according to Chainalysis statistics. The majority of those big institutional transactions were done in Ethereum, and they were wrapped in Ethereum (wETH). The wETH token is an ERC-20 token with the same value as Ethereum, which is frequently used in DeFi protocols.

“In most months, DeFi protocols make up three to four of the top five services, with Uniswap, Instadapp, and dydx making regular appearances. Meanwhile, the most popular centralized exchanges are Binance and Coinbase,” the analysts said.

The business of decentralized finance has grown to be worth billions of dollars. Institutional developments in Europe show the popularity of the DeFi market, and a similar tendency can be observed in the United States.

Traded Currencies in European Countries, The United Kingdom led by a large margin among European nations, followed by France and Germany.

In nearly every nation, Ethereum and wETH are the most popular cryptocurrency. Bitcoin accounts for 27% of transaction value in the United Kingdom, while Ethereum and wETH account for 40%. Bitcoin accounts for 28% of transaction volume in Germany, while Ethereum and wETH account for 36%. In France, however, Bitcoin accounts for just 20% of transaction volume, while Ethereum and wETH account for 45%.

In most nations, stablecoin use is constantly between 25% and 30% of total transaction volume. Stablecoins, on the other hand, account for 39 percent of all crypto activity in outliers like Monaco. In most areas, altcoin use is likewise consistent, ranging from 8% to 11%.

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