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Nearly a quarter of adults with internet access might own cryptocurrency in the Asia Pacific region, a report, produced jointly by Protocol Theory and CoinDesk, said Friday.

The report, based on a survey of 4,020 people in 10 different countries and extrapolated to the broader APAC region, further suggested that crypto adoption is spurred by a lack of access to traditional financial services. Meanwhile, stablecoins are adopted by nearly 18% of adults with internet access in emerging markets in the region.

How quickly adoption continues to grow will depend on how easy it is to use digital assets in everyday lives, said the report, published ahead of CoinDesk's Consensus: Hong Kong conference next February.

"APAC Digital Asset Adoption 2025 finds that participation is now shaped by usability, integration and inclusion rather than speculation," the report said. "Stablecoins, remittances and tokenized assets are emerging as the practical foundations of a digital economy that operates across borders and devices, supported by regulatory frameworks designed to enable rather than restrict participation."

According to the survey, the report stated that half of adults aware of cryptocurrency intend to use it within the next year or so, despite marginal adoption over the past year. The survey was conducted in India, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Australia and Japan, with the United Arab Emirates included as a comparable market. Roughly 400 people from each country were surveyed. It also focused on adults between the ages of 18 and 64 who have access to the internet and had previously heard of crypto.

One reason for the slow adoption might be that traditional financial services — digital bank accounts, remittances, even bill payments — are relatively easy across the region, compared to the "complexity of wallets, exchanges and token transfers," the report said.

However, a developing regulatory regime across different countries is enabling growth and adoption, the report said.

More than 70% of adults in emerging economies — such as the UAE, India, China, Philippines and Thailand — say that regulations are important, the report said. That figure drops to about 66% in locations like Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore, and falls below 50% in Japan.

"This divergence reflects differing stages of market confidence. In emerging economies, regulation fills an institutional gap — acting as a proxy for trust and signaling that participation is legitimate," the report said.

"In mature markets, where extensive consumer protections already exist, regulation functions less as a bridge to access and more as a means of managing risk."