13% of Americans have traded cryptos in the past year, poll finds

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Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto via Getty Images

More than one in 10 Americans has invested in cryptocurrency in the past year, according to a survey released by the University of Chicago, a sign of the popularity of digital currencies like bitcoin and ethereum.

Specifically, 13% bought or traded cryptos in the past 12 months compared to 24% of Americans invested in stocks during the same time period, according to the survey.

Investors were likely boosted by a rise in crypto prices earlier this year. Indeed, most crypto investors (61%) have bought in the past six months, according to NORC, a university research group that published the survey.

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Bitcoin peaked at around $ 63,000 in mid-April, a 116% jump from around $ 29,000 at the start of 2021.

Coinbase, the largest digital currency exchange in the United States, went public in mid-April. And celebrities like Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk have also expressed their enthusiasm for crypto investments. In May, Tesla announced that it would accept bitcoin as a payment method for vehicle purchases. (Musk has since suspended those plans due to environmental concerns related to bitcoin mining.)

Yet digital currencies can fluctuate wildly in value as well.

As of Friday morning, bitcoin had fallen to around $ 32,000, about half of its April highs, but still a gain of around 10% for the year.

This volatility has led some financial experts to qualify crypto as a speculative asset. Financial advisers generally recommend that crypto investors allocate only a small portion of their portfolio to it.

“Potential investors are reluctant to invest their retirement savings in what has been a fairly volatile investment to date,” said Mark Lush, who leads NORC’s behavioral and economic analysis and decision-making team. .

“Cryptocurrencies may have stamina as an investment option, but our hunch is that they will continue to lag behind more traditional investment opportunities for the foreseeable future,” he said. .

Only 11% of those who don’t invest in cryptocurrency said they were extremely or somewhat likely to start trading in the next 12 months, according to the survey.

According to the survey, crypto investors tended to be younger and more diverse in terms of gender, race and ethnicity, compared to retail equity investors.

The average crypto investor is 38, while stock investors are 47.

Forty-one percent of women, 44% of investors of color, and 35% of those with incomes below $ 60,000 a year have traded cryptocurrency in the past year, with respective shares above 38% , 35% and 27% who traded stocks.

However, investors with a college degree tended to favor 51% stocks traded in the past year versus 45% for crypto.

The University of Chicago survey interviewed a nationally representative sample of 1,004 American adults from June 24 to 28.

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