Crypto4me, the digital-asset service provided by Madison Six j. s. a., company authorized under MiCA regulation, announced the launch of the Cryptonomy Retail Index® (CRI) — a global ranking that measures how far cryptocurrencies have penetrated everyday retail. The 2026 edition is published on the crypto4me website as a free, interactive resource.
Rather than tracking speculation or trading volumes, the Cryptonomy Retail Index answers a more practical question: how common a part of everyday shopping cryptocurrencies really are. It combines data on payment infrastructure and crypto ownership with an assessment of retail transaction activity and the quality of each country’s legislative environment, ranking 43 countries on a scale from 0 to 10.
A four-pillar view of real-world adoption
Each country’s CRI score is a weighted sum of four pillars, synthesised from heterogeneous, publicly available and licensed data sources:
- Infrastructure (30%) — physical and digital readiness for crypto payments, based on verified brick-and-mortar merchant density (via BTC Map / OpenStreetMap) and crypto ATM density (via CoinATMRadar, national estimates and BTC Map fallback data).
- Transactions (30%) — expert-assigned scores intended to reflect retail on-chain and off-chain volumes under USD 10,000, weighted by GDP at purchasing power parity, plus an efficient-payment-network coefficient. These scores are carried forward from the beta edition and have not been recomputed.
- Ownership (20%) — the reported share of people owning crypto assets, based primarily on GWI / DataReportal surveys of internet users aged 16–64 and supplemented by national surveys.
- Legislation (20%) — the tax and regulatory ecosystem that determines whether paying with crypto is practically feasible or administratively restricted.
Source data are aggregated and normalised so that smaller economies can outrank wealthier ones where crypto is a relatively bigger part of everyday payments.
What the 2026 ranking reveals
- Switzerland ranks #1 worldwide with a CRI of 8.56, on the back of a dense acceptance network and a favourable tax regime.
- The United States leads on infrastructure (CRI 7.67), with 20,005 crypto ATMs across the country as of July 2026.
- The Netherlands (7.52) and El Salvador (7.27) round out the global top tier, followed by Portugal (6.99).
- Czechia is number three in the EU and 6th worldwide (CRI 6.80), pairing an estimated 102 verified acceptance points with a favourable tax regime.
- Japan sits at the bottom of the table (CRI 3.44), weighed down by a top tax rate above 50% and a sparse merchant network.
The data also surface a “parallel system” in markets such as Nigeria and Argentina, where dollar stablecoin activity is primarily peer-to-peer rather than point-of-sale.
“The conversation around crypto is still dominated by price. The Cryptonomy Retail Index shifts the focus to where it matters for ordinary people — the corner café, the local shop, the everyday purchase. We built it to show, with real data, where crypto has genuinely become a usable alternative to cash, and where it has not,” said Milos Mazor, CEO of Madison Six, as the index was launched at https://crypto4me.eu/en.
The Cryptonomy Retail Index® (2026 edition) is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, or an offer to buy or sell any crypto-assets. Past performance of markets or assets is not indicative of future results.
About crypto4me
Crypto4me enables the purchase of all major cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ether and SOL. In compliance with the strict conditions of the European MiCA license, the company implements robust security measures for trading and the storage of cryptocurrencies in wallets, as well as additional measures such as multi-factor client authentication, encryption, and regular penetration testing.
The crypto4me service is operated by Madison Six j. s. a. As of December 18, 2025, the company holds authorization to provide cryptocurrency-related services, granted by the National Bank of Slovakia under number 100-001-025-213 in accordance with the MiCA regulation*. At the same time, based on this license, the company is authorized to provide cryptocurrency services on a cross-border basis throughout the EU/EEA.