India Has The World's Largest Web3 Ecosystem With Over 1,000 Startups: Report
The sector received $250 million in investment in 2023, and there has been sustained interest in early-stage web3 startups, according to the report—India’s Web3 Landscape 2023.
India is one of the largest web3 ecosystems in the world with more than 1,000 startups. Its share of the global pool of blockchain developers rose from 3% in 2018 to 12% in 2023, the highest among emerging markets, according to a report by web3 venture capital firm Hashed Emergent.
The sector received $250 million in investment in 2023, and there has been sustained interest in early-stage web3 startups, according to the report—India’s Web3 Landscape 2023. There has been an increase in funding of startups in web3 subsectors of finance, entertainment and infrastructure, and Bengaluru is emerging as the hub for the sector.
The country ranked first for on-chain adoption in 2023 among over 150 countries, with more than 35 million trading accounts on the top Indian exchanges, the report said. India ranks in the top five in peer-to-peer trading volume.
Of the country’s centralised exchanges users, 75% are under 35, with Bitcoin and Ethereum emerging as the preferred assets among Indian traders.
“With a large economy, skilled tech talent pool and favourable demographics, the right conditions exist for a thriving Indian web3 sector full of innovation and opportunity. We believe the regulatory environment is evolving slowly in the right direction, and further positive regulatory developments are required to fuel growth,” said Tak Lee, chief executive and managing partner of Hashed Emergent.
Of the surveyed web3 gamers, 90% said they played web3 games to earn NFTs and tokens, and 50% said they enjoyed playing web3 games. Over 29% of respondents spend more than Rs 1,000 in web3 games, compared to 10% among web2 games.
Large companies are now participating in the web3 ecosystem. The Indian government and more than 50% of state governments are planning or running initiatives that leverage blockchain, the report noted.
