Chainalysis says Singapore crypto activity rose 55.4% to $284 billion

Chainalysis said Singapore's crypto activity rose 55.4% to $284 billion in the year ended June 2026. Singapore regained its position as the largest crypto economy in Central and Southeast Asia and Oceania. Institutional platform activity increased 94% to $60 billion, with activity concentrated among a small number of market makers, over-the-counter trading firms and institutional brokerages. Chainalysis said the growth largely reflected high-volume activity on existing platforms rather than the entry of new services. Chainalysis said the broader regional crypto economy contracted 6.8% over the same period. Singapore has been tightening crypto regulation while supporting tokenization, stablecoins and digital-asset settlement. In 2025, the Monetary Authority of Singapore required local crypto firms serving overseas clients to obtain a license or exit. StraitsX CEO Tianwei Liu said the requirement reduced speculative activity while more institutional players, including banks and large companies, continued using blockchain in production. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has expanded tokenization and settlement initiatives. Its BLOOM program supports trials using regulated stablecoins and tokenized bank money. Ripple joined the initiative on March 25 to test cross-border trade settlement using RLUSD. Chainalysis found growing small-value peer-to-peer activity in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The three countries recorded a combined 5.4 million domestic and cross-border peer-to-peer transfers worth less than $10,000 during the reporting period. Those transfers represented 14.4% of the global total, although the three countries accounted for 2.5% of the global crypto economy. More than four in five domestic peer-to-peer transfers across the three countries were below $1,000. Their average domestic transfer size was $618, compared with $1,210 across the rest of the world. The International Monetary Fund previously said Philippine authorities view crypto use as primarily driven by remittances and investment. World Bank data show personal remittances to the Philippines were equivalent to 8.5% of GDP in 2025. Vietnamese outlet Tuoi Tre reported in June that peer-to-peer trading had become an important way to exchange local currency for crypto because direct trading pairs with the Vietnamese dong were not widely supported. Reuters reported in March that most crypto traders in Vietnam rely on overseas exchanges, making peer-to-peer channels important for moving between local bank accounts and crypto on those platforms. Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission said in September that it had observed a significant increase in stablecoin transaction volume and value, particularly for USDT. Chainalysis said cross-border stablecoin activity exceeded domestic activity in every market it analyzed. Cross-border stablecoin activity across the region was 3.2 times domestic activity, Chainalysis said. Chainalysis said stablecoins accounted for a growing share in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, possibly because of their ease of use, speed and low transfer costs. Thailand's domestic stablecoin market stood at $10.4 billion, while Vietnam's stood at $6.9 billion. Cross-border stablecoin activity was significantly larger than domestic activity in those two countries. PDAX CEO and founder Nichel Gaba estimated that stablecoins settle 5% to 10% of inbound remittances to the Philippines. Gaba said major remittance companies are pursuing stablecoin settlement initiatives there. In July, the Bank of the Philippine Islands revealed plans for a stablecoin settlement pilot aimed at reducing the cost and processing time of overseas payments to Filipino freelancers and remote workers.