India's Cryptocurrency Activity Surges to USD 19 Billion in 2025

The global crypto market saw a significant surge in potentially taxable on-chain activity in 2025, according to blockchain data firm Chainalysis. The report estimates that this activity reached USD 457 billion globally, with India accounting for USD 19 billion of the total.

Of the USD 19 billion from India, USD 3.2 billion came from income, USD 5.1 billion from gains, and USD 10.7 billion from payments. The US recorded the highest potentially taxable crypto activity at USD 112.6 billion, followed by Germany, China, and the UK.

The figures are based on on-chain activity across six major blockchains: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Tron, BNB Smart Chain, and Base. However, the report notes that this estimate is conservative and should be viewed as a lower boundary, as activity taking place within centralised exchanges is not visible on-chain.

The increasing scale of potentially taxable crypto activity has led to greater attention from tax authorities. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), which requires reporting crypto-asset service providers, including centralised exchanges and certain brokers, to collect customer information and report relevant crypto transactions.

However, the analysis notes that CARF covers only a portion of the on-chain activity identified. CARF-inclusive events accounted for 14% of global potentially taxable on-chain activity, while the remaining 86% includes decentralised exchange activity, peer-to-peer transfers, on-chain income and payments.