In the first six months of this year — as crypto-booster President Donald Trump reversed the U.S. government’s cautionary resistance to crypto — transaction volumes in the U.S. spiked by about 50% to clear $1 trillion, according to a report from TRM Labs published Tuesday.
The rapid increase was multi-faceted, with institutions leaping into stablecoins and others getting into newly regulated products such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), plus the rise in comfort level for investors as U.S. regulators and lawmakers began moving to establish industry rules.
When the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and banking regulators kept crypto at an arm’s length from the financial system during the Biden administration, the constant refrain from industry lobbyists was that the government was chasing the innovators overseas. Trump vowed to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world” when he took office.
The 50% bump in the U.S. can partially be attributed to the “more favorable political and regulatory climate,” said Ari Redbord, TRM’s global head of policy.
“It’s difficult to say how much of this is due to offshore activity returning onshore, but the trend is consistent with growing confidence, clearer rules and renewed capital formation in the U.S. market,” he said.
TRM Labs, a digital assets analytics firm, maintains a country-adoption index of global crypto activity, weighting it with economic factors that de-emphasize the high-transaction volume that’s expected to be more associated with higher-income countries. India has occupied the top of the list for three years running — a period of strong growth for crypto globally.
Pakistan, the Philippines and Brazil filled out the rest of the top five.
In the U.S., there was a sharp divide in crypto interest around the presidential election last year. In the six months after that date, web traffic to providers of virtual-asset services went up by 30%, the report said. Through July of this year, the White House issued executive orders directing friendly crypto policies; the SEC established a crypto task force with that same aim; Congress passed a new law to regulate stablecoin issuers; and significant process was made on a wider market structure bill, which passed the House of Representatives but has hit a current snag in the Senate.