MetaMask hits 10M monthly active users, led by Filipinos

Thanks to the growing popularity of play to earn, the Philippines has emerged as the home of the world’s most active MetaMask users.

ConsenSys, the company created by the co-founder of Ethereum, Joseph Lubin, has announced on Sept. 1 that its MetaMask cryptocurrency wallet now has more than 10 million monthly active users, with nearly 20% coming from the Philippines. To celebrate this milestone, the company will host a party in the Decentraland virtual world on Sept. 2.

“MetaMask owes its growth to our community. They are constantly coming up with new ways to build and organize, and are always pushing us to improve in countless ways. As long as we can continue to help unleash their creativity, while keeping users safe, I think we’ll have an exciting future,” said MetaMask Co-Founder Dan Finlay.

Play to earn

The cryptocurrency wallet is becoming the top choice for storing digital assets, particularly those earned from online gaming. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many Filipinos from all walks of life started playing the non-fungible token-based game Axie Infinity to earn a living.

This Pokémon-like game allows players to collect, raise, and battle fantasy creatures while earning Small Love Potion (SLP) tokens. They can then use these SLP digital assets to breed the digital pets known as Axies, or use a cryptocurrency wallet to convert their digital wealth to real-world Philippine pesos.

Play to earn has helped the Philippines become the top country for MetaMask in terms of monthly active users as of August 2021. The other countries in the Top 15 are the United States, Vietnam, United Kingdom, China, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Germany, France, Canada, and Spain.

The new numbers on MetaMask’s user base represents a 19X growth compared to July 2020. This exponential growth has tracked closely with that of the Ethereum ecosystem. In 2019, $2B in crypto assets were committed to decentralized finance (DeFi). Today, Ethereum supports a flourishing DeFi ecosystem with over $80B billion in assets under management. 

DeFi is helping accelerate financial inclusion by addressing the limitations of traditional finance, including substantial geographical barriers around the movement of capital, extensive paperwork, tons of intermediaries, lack of transparency, and high fees.