Beyond Speculation: Binance Reveals How Crypto Is Transforming Emerging Markets

Binance has released a report outlining how cryptocurrencies and digital asset infrastructure are improving financial access in underserved regions and emerging markets. Titled “Finance Without Frontiers,” the paper explains how the unbanked and underbanked population is turning to crypto for cross-border payments and financial inclusion as a whole.

According to the report, crypto adoption has grown beyond speculation into real-world utility because of the financial inclusion it offers. Besides trading on digital asset platforms, users now have access to global systems through tokenization, artificial intelligence (AI) agents, and mobile-native services.

A Huge Financial Inclusion Gap

Researchers at the world’s largest crypto exchange found that the scale of unmet financial need is structural and concentrated in certain regions. There is a huge global financial inclusion gap.

Data from the World Bank revealed that roughly 21% of the global adult population (1.3 billion adults) remains unbanked. Approximately 73% of these adults are found in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with more than 50% concentrated in eight countries.

For the purpose of the report, researchers tagged adults with access to deposit accounts but limited access to credit, digital payments, yield-bearing savings, or cross-border services as the underbanked. About 4.7 billion adults lack access to credit or loans, and 3.6 billion in LMICs do not use digital payments or cards. Roughly 40% of adults in LMICs save formally, with at least 77% receiving no interest on their deposits.

Interestingly, five of the eight countries with the highest concentration of unbanked people rank among the top 20 in Chainalysis’s Global Crypto Adoption Index. This pattern shows that digital networks have provided an alternative entry point for financial inclusion.

How Crypto Helps

Diving deeper, Binance researchers highlighted areas where crypto has driven financial inclusion. Some of them include payments and remittances, access to capital markets, private-market democratization via tokenization, and programmable finance for non-human participants (AI agents). There is also the area of device penetration for people with mobile phones versus those with smartphones.

Amid the rise in financial inclusion, the growth of the share of crypto users from emerging markets has outpaced that of developed markets. Users from emerging markets have increased from 49% in 2020 to 77% in 2026 amid active demand for a broader range of financial services.