FinTech Leapfrogging: A Comparative Analysis of Digital Payments and Cryptocurrency Adoption in Emerging and Developed Economies

Abstract

This study examines whether FinTech adoption follows divergent structural pathways across emerging and developed economies, focusing on digital payments and cryptocurrency adoption. Drawing on leapfrogging theory, it develops a comparative framework linking financial infrastructure, digital payment expansion, financial inclusion, and crypto-adoption intensity. The analysis is based on a purposive sample of ten economies and combines data from Statista Market Insights, the Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index, and the World Bank Global Findex Database. The findings identify two broad patterns. In developed economies, digital payment expansion primarily reflects optimisation within mature financial systems, characterised by high banking penetration, established card-based infrastructures, and convenience-driven adoption. In several emerging economies, by contrast, digital payments exhibit a more transformative role, increasingly operating as an alternative transactional infrastructure in settings marked by financial inclusion gaps and weaker institutional capacity. Cryptocurrency adoption presents a more differentiated picture. Rather than supporting a simple inverse relationship between financial exclusion and crypto uptake, the results point to multiple adoption pathways, ranging from partial substitution for incomplete financial services in some emerging markets to investment- and institution-led adoption in developed ones.