Why are so many people in Eastern Europe using cryptocurrencies?

How did Russia, a country where cryptocurrencies are banned for use as payment, and Ukraine, where the asset class essentially exists outside of the law, rank the highest when it comes to crypto adoption?

The latest Chainalysis report, where Eastern Europe was found to have the highest grassroots-level adoption of cryptocurrency despite being the fourth-largest market by volume, tries to answer this question.

To measure the adoption and usage of cryptocurrencies around the world, analytics company Chainalysis created the Global Crypto Adoption Index.

The index, made up of four unique metrics, including value received weighted by purchasing power per capita, provides interesting insights into how and why people use cryptocurrencies.

According to the report, the highest rate of grassroots-level adoption of cryptocurrencies is currently happening in Eastern Europe.

Why are these two countries, where cryptocurrencies are either banned as a means of payment or essentially exist outside of the law, leading the huge Eastern European region in adoption?

These two factors alone could be enough to explain why so many people in Russia and Ukraine have resorted to using cryptocurrencies in the past several years.

What makes the residents of these two countries much more susceptible to the adoption of cryptocurrencies is the fact that they all have a pre-existing familiarity with electronic payments.

With the rise of remittances in countries such as Ukraine, which has a large population of ex-pats living in countries such as Slovakia, the low fees and lack of government oversight make cryptocurrencies more attractive than even the most established services such as Western Union.

The cryptocurrency adoption seen in the two largest countries of the Eastern Block might not continue to increase at the same rate in the near future.