Distrust or Speculation? The Socioeconomic Drivers of U.S. Cryptocurrency Investments

51 Pages Posted: 21 Sep 2021

See all articles by Raphael Auer

Raphael Auer

Bank for International Settlements (BIS)

David Tercero-Lucas

Comillas Pontifical University - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: 2021

Abstract

Employing representative data from the U.S. Survey of Consumer Payment Choice, we disprove the hypothesis that cryptocurrency investors are motivated by distrust in fiat currencies or regulated finance. Compared with the general population, investors show no differences in their level of security concerns with either cash or commercial banking services. We find that cryptocurrency investors tend to be educated, young and digital natives. In recent years, a gap in ownership of cryptocurrencies across genders has emerged. We examine how investor characteristics vary across cryptocurrencies and show that owners of cryptocurrencies increasingly tend to hold their investment for longer periods.

Keywords: digital currencies, cryptocurrencies, distributed ledger technology, blockchain, payments, digitalisation, banking, household finance, money, bitcoin, ether, xrp, bitcoin cash, litecoin, stellar, eos

JEL Classification: D140, D910, E420, G110, G120, G280, O330

Suggested Citation

Auer, Raphael and Tercero-Lucas, David, Distrust or Speculation? The Socioeconomic Drivers of U.S. Cryptocurrency Investments (2021). CESifo Working Paper No. 9287, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3925319 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3925319

Raphael Auer (Contact Author)

Bank for International Settlements (BIS) ( email )

David Tercero-Lucas

Comillas Pontifical University - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration ( email )

Spain

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
202
Abstract Views
722
Rank
287,664
PlumX Metrics