India’s Web3 Adoption Deepens, With More Than 1,000 start-ups: Report 

Hashed Emergent, a Web3 venture capital firm, has unveiled the second edition of its flagship report, ‘India’s Web3 Landscape 2023’. 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 start-up ecosystem (with over 1,000 start-ups), with Bengaluru emerging as the hub for the sector. The report has been developed by Hashed Emergent and its knowledge partners KPMG in India, Devfolio, Coinswitch, and Kratos Gaming Network (KGen). 

Here are some of the key highlights from the report: 

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. 

Funding: The sector received $250 million 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-ups. There has been an increase in funding for start-ups in the subsectors of finance, entertainment, and infrastructure. 

Web3 Gaming: 90 per cent of the surveyed Web3 gamers stated that they played Web3 games to earn NFTs and tokens, and 50 per cent of the gamers surveyed also expressed that they enjoyed playing Web3 games. Additionally, gamers have a higher propensity to play Web3 games over Web3 games. Over 29 per cent of respondents spend more than Rs 1,000 on web3 games, compared to 10 per cent on web2 games. 

Krishna Tyagi, Head of Web3 at KPMG in India, said, “The increasing adoption of Web3 and blockchain across various sectors and industries is a big global opportunity for Indian tech talent and businesses. Blockchains have enabled various innovative use cases such as DeFi, real-world asset Assets tokenisation, self-sovereign identities, track and trace, etc., which were not possible earlier.” 

Tak Lee, CEO and Managing Partner of Hashed Emergent, stated, “The findings of our second edition flagship report underscore India’s remarkable ascent in Web3 adoption and show that it is on a trajectory to become the global leader. With a large economy, a skilled tech talent pool, and favorable demographics, the right conditions exist for a thriving Indian Web3 sector full of innovation and opportunity.”