According to the World Bank, 1.3B adults remain unbanked, many of them in countries with high crypto adoption driven by the need for greater financial access. The underbanked population is equally significant: on average, 4.7B adults lack access to credit and loans, 3.6B adults in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) do not use digital payments or cards, and 1.4B savers in LMICs earn no interest on their deposits.
Remittance costs remain impractical for most transactions in LMICs. Stablecoins offer a compelling alternative, with transaction costs up to 99% lower and significantly faster settlement, helping advance the UN’s target for reducing the global average cost of remittances.
In the US, 87% of firms with more than US$100M in revenue are privately held, and companies are staying private for longer. This has limited retail investors’ ability to participate in early-stage value creation. Tokenization and pre-IPO perpetuals can help democratize access to private market opportunities for retail investors.
Binance data shows a similar pattern: user adoption is growing in emerging markets, and users in these markets are more likely to engage in financial activities beyond trading on the platform. They also exhibit savings rates that are more than twice as high as those of users in developed markets.
#MacroandMarketInsights #ai