Hashed Emergent, a web3 venture capital firm focused on India and emerging markets, has unveiled the second edition of its flagship report, “India’s Web3 Landscape 2023”. The report, which analyses and highlights India’s remarkable emergence as a global leader in web3 adoption, has been created by Hashed Emergent and its knowledge partners KPMG in India, Devfolio, Coinswitch, Kratos Gaming Network (KGen).
The web3 industry has been on a rise globally, and India has stood out as a beacon of growth for this transformative technology. The report delves into the trends and drivers that have propelled India to the forefront as the leading adopter of blockchain technology. It explores the dynamics behind India’s rise in the web3 sector, showcasing its vibrant start-up ecosystem (with over 1,000 start-ups), with Bangalore emerging as the hub for the sector.
Tak Lee, CEO & Managing Partner of Hashed Emergent, stated, “The findings of our second edition flagship report underscore India’s remarkable ascent in web3 adoption and shows that it is on a trajectory to become the global leader. 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. India’s web3 sector is dynamic and vibrant. At Hashed Emergent, we are excited to witness and contribute to India’s journey towards becoming a powerhouse in the decentralized future.”
Krishna Tyagi, Head of web3 at KPMG in India stated, “The increasing adoption of web3 and blockchain across various sectors and industry is a big global opportunity for Indian tech talent and businesses. Blockchains have enabled various innovative use cases such as DeFi, Real World Assets tokenization, Self-Sovereign Identities, Track & Trace etc. which were not possible earlier. We are continuously innovating and participating to develop the ecosystem and help our clients leverage the power of blockchains”.
Parth Chaturvedi, Investments Lead at CoinSwitch Ventures stated, “The report showcases the true on-ground reality of web3 in India in two major ways: Firstly, Indians continue to actively trade and invest in crypto as an asset class, even after the tumultuous bear market phase; and secondly, the builders continue to launch start-ups in the space as India becomes a key web3 developer market. This is despite the lack of regulatory clarity and limited capital inflows into the space. CoinSwitch Ventures is aiming to change this by creating a bridge for global VCs to explore Indian web3 projects and also deploy capital by co-investing in early-stage founders!”
Ishank Gupta, Co-Founder and Elder Council Member at Kratos Gaming Network (KGen), stated, “The emerging web3 gaming sector in India shows promising growth potential and is poised to make a substantial impact on the country’s gaming market. The landscape report highlights increasing growth in web3 gamers and a greater willingness to pay for web3 games. At KGen, we are dedicated to fostering this growth and assisting gamers in leveraging their on-chain gaming data for monetization.”
Denver Dsouza, CEO of Devfolio, commented, “Devfolio is proud to be part of the India web3 landscape 2023 report, shedding light on the dynamic ecosystem and the rising potential of web3 technologies. As a platform, empowering builders through hackathons, fellowships, and grants, we’re excited to witness the growing engagement of the Indian developer community. This report reaffirms our commitment to fostering economic opportunities for next-gen builders, driving innovation, and shaping the future of web3 in India”.
Some key highlights from the report include:
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Consumer Adoption: India has claimed the top spot for on-chain adoption in 2023 among 150+ countries, with more than 35 million trading accounts on the top Indian exchanges. India now ranks in the top 5 in peer-to-peer (P2P) trading volume. Notably, 75% of Indian centralized exchanges (CEX) users are under 35, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) emerging as the most favoured assets among Indian traders.
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Funding: India has one of the largest web3 ecosystems in the world, boasting 1,000+ startups. The sector received USD 250M of investment in 2023, which was a decline from the total funding in 2022, but the number of deals has stayed flat showing sustained interest in early-stage web3 start-up. There has been an increase in funding of start-ups in web3 subsectors of finance, entertainment, and infrastructure.
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Developers: India’s share of the global pool of web3 developers has increased from 3% in 2018 to 12% in 2023, and India has the highest share of web3 developers among the emerging markets.
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Web3 Gaming: 90% of the surveyed web3 gamers stated that they played web3 games to earn NFTs and tokens, and 50% of the gamers surveyed also expressed that they enjoyed playing web3 games. Additionally, gamers have a higher propensity to play for web3 games over web3 games. Over 29% of respondents spend more than INR 1,000 in web3 games, compared to 10% among Web2 games.
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Institutional Adoption: Large companies like Eros, Infosys and Shemaroo are participating in the web3 ecosystem. The Indian government and more than 50% of State governments are planning or running initiatives that leverage blockchain.
