New York, Berlin Tied for Second Place as ‘Most Important Crypto Hub’: Survey

A new survey suggests one European capital is best poised to lure in even more of the industry.

European crypto projects have named Lisbon as the world’s most important crypto hub, according to its biannual State of European Crypto Report 2023 published today by European crypto investment firm Greenfield.

The report anonymously surveyed 68 heads of companies and protocols whose founding members are European in origin or are also headquartered in Europe. Despite the anonymized survey, a spokesperson from Greenfield estimated that a third of respondents were also portfolio companies. 

“We have great confidence that Europe’s crypto scene will continue to prosper, bolstered by the MiCA regulation, which will solidify Europe’s position as one of the world’s most important industry hubs,” Jascha Samadi, a co-founding partner told Decrypt via email. “Even amidst the current bear market and compared to the last market downturn in 2018, we see remarkable growth in the European builder community and, besides that, clear signs of the industry’s maturation.”

Half (50%) of respondents put Lisbon in their personal top three most relevant crypto hubs in the world. Berlin and New York jointly held second place, having each been mentioned by 35% of respondents. Paris came in seventh place.

Unsurprisingly, when asked to pick just one European city respondents consider the “most relevant” to the industry, Lisbon trumped again in the eyes of 35% of project founders.

The most commonly cited reasons for championing the Portuguese capital include its strong decentralized finance (DeFi) scene and favorable tax laws. 

State of European Crypto: key takeaways

Greenfield’s new report comes two weeks after European lawmakers approved the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) bill, the bloc’s first attempt to establish a unified and comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto among its 27 member states. 

Regulations were cited as the most influential topic of 2023 for 70% of respondents. Issues around privacy and identity came far behind in second place among 35% of projects. 

When asked to rank the main hurdles on the way towards mass adoption, most European projects gave pride of place to improve the user experience of crypto. Issues of regulation came in second place. 

Most of the respondents nearly unanimously agree that after the serious turmoil of 2022, which was bookended by the historic collapses of stablecoin issuer Terra and crypto exchange FTX, this year will be one of industry regeneration and the cleansing of bad actors. 

There’s no shortage of new development talent to help them grow the tech. In a section that looked at 42 top companies and protocols with strong European footprints, Greenfield found that there were 1,300 monthly developers in Q1 2023 (according to their GitHub repositories).

This number marked an increase of 300 from Q4 2022, the most substantial spike yet. 

It’s all the more remarkable, says Greenfield, given that the same sector lost ground in terms of market capitalization. 

After having almost 6% of the combined market cap of Bitcoin and Ethereum at the peak of their heady bull run back in Q4 2021, the same projects now have 2.5% (or $20 billion) in Q1 2023.