Crypto investors in advanced economies love CEXs and disregard white papers: Survey

Over 65% of people surveyed in Canada, the UK and the US said their crypto holdings are a “long-term investment,” according to a study released on Tuesday by fintech company Broadridge.

The study took into account the attitudes of 2,000 “crypto market participants” from March to June 2023. Its findings suggest that there is a contingent of people in advanced economies who are in it for the long haul and aren’t simply speculators. 

Bitcoin, the world’s largest and oldest cryptocurrency, was the most popular asset among the participants’ portfolios with over 70% holding it. Just shy of 70% of respondents held non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies, and considerably fewer people — around 25% — held stablecoins. 

Consistent with the buy and hold method many traditional stock investors employ, respondents paid more attention to “financials, risk and security, and information about the management team” instead of native crypto metrics such as tokenomics and network activity. 

The researchers partly chalked this up to the novelty of crypto assets, but concluded that the respondents were underappreciating elements such as token supply, major holders of the token, and governance when it comes to their investing strategy. 

In fact, one of the most valuable ways to gain insight into crypto projects — their white paper — was the least accessed source of information among the participants, at just over 20%. 

Crypto websites were the preferred source to gather information about crypto projects for nearly 40%, and even social media — i.e. crypto Twitter — was more of a go-to at around 26%.

And as much as the need for decentralization is a dominant narrative on crypto Twitter, survey results show that slightly more than 50% of people hold crypto on CEXs rather than in user-controlled wallets.

In terms of country-specific observations, one thing was clear. Canadians were the most likely to hold a significant portion of their wealth in crypto. The average Canadian surveyed held over 36% of their assets in some form of crypto. 

But the real crypto degens, who hold over 50% of their assets in crypto, were way more likely to be Americans or Brits. In fact, more than a tenth of UK respondents said 76% or more of their assets were held in crypto.

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