Crypto's 'honeymoon period' fades as ownership declines
(TNND) — Cryptocurrency ownership has fallen from its high point a year ago as financial experts say the once edgy, underground asset has lost some steam with investors.
A new Gallup survey found crypto ownership has fallen from 14% to 9% among all U.S. adults over the last year and from 17% to 11% among investors.
Two-thirds of investors – defined by Gallup as folks with $10,000 or more in investable assets – say they aren’t interested in buying crypto. That’s up just a few percentage points compared to last year.
The share of investors who say they’re intrigued by crypto or plan to buy has remained flat at just under 20%.
Young men – those 18-49 – are the most likely to own crypto. But even among that subgroup, ownership has fallen from 33% to 24% over the last year.
Professor Jay Zagorsky, with the Questrom School of Business at Boston University, said a crypto price drop over the last year has sent “tenuous investors ... looking someplace else to make their fortune.”
Stephen Kates, a certified financial planner and the principal at Clocktower Financial Consulting, said a large majority of the crypto market’s value is concentrated in bitcoin and Ethereum.
Kates said crypto enjoyed a “honeymoon period” in the early 2020s, but the years since haven’t been as kind to the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem as they have been to bitcoin specifically.
Still, bitcoin was trading around $86,000 per coin as of Tuesday afternoon, down from a peak of over $120,000 last fall.
Kates said he expects bitcoin and Ethereum to remain “mildly popular” yet “volatile” assets. But he said crypto is no longer seen as the “it” investment.
“The end of cheap money means cryptocurrencies must compete with less risky, yield-producing assets for investor capital,” Kates said via email. “The rise of sports betting and prediction markets has also expanded the number of outlets available to people looking for speculative opportunities, although it is difficult to say exactly how much this has actually displaced crypto speculation.”
Crypto operates through blockchains, or decentralized digital ledgers.
Unlike traditional financial assets, like stocks and bonds, crypto is an asset whose entire value depends on what people are willing to pay for it at a period in time based on what they think someone else will pay for it in the future.
The majority of investors, 63%, told Gallup that crypto is a “very” risky place to put their money.
Kates said bitcoin and Ethereum seem to have some staying power, but he expects many of the other coins and tokens to “fade further into obscurity or remain primarily outlets for speculation, memes, and gambling.”
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