Nearly half of crypto homeowners first purchased digital belongings in 2021: Survey

Almost half of all cryptocurrency homeowners within the United States, Latin America and Asia Pacific bought the digital belongings for the primary time in 2021, in keeping with a brand new survey from U.S. cryptocurrency alternate Gemini.

The survey of almost 30,000 individuals throughout 20 nations, which was carried out between November 2021 and February 2022, exhibits 2021 was a blockbuster yr for crypto, with inflation specifically driving adoption in nations which have skilled forex devaluation, the report discovered.

Brazil and Indonesia lead the world in crypto adoption, Gemini discovered, with 41% of individuals surveyed in these nations reporting crypto possession, in contrast with 20% within the United States and 18% within the United Kingdom.

Gemini discovered that 79% of people that reported proudly owning crypto final yr stated they selected to buy the digital belongings for his or her long-term funding potential.

People who don’t at present personal crypto and stay in nations which have skilled forex devaluation in opposition to the U.S. greenback had been greater than 5 instances as prone to say they deliberate to buy crypto as a hedge in opposition to inflation.

Only 16% of respondents within the United States and 15% in Europe agreed that cryptocurrencies hedge in opposition to inflation, in contrast with 64% in Indonesia and India, for instance.

The Indian rupee has declined 17.5% in opposition to the greenback within the final 5 years, whereas the Indonesian rupiah depreciated 50% in opposition to the greenback between 2011 and 2020.

Only 17% of Europeans reported that they owned digital belongings in 2021, and solely 7% of those that don’t at present personal crypto stated they supposed to purchase digital belongings in some unspecified time in the future.

It stays to be seen if the adoption momentum can preserve tempo this yr.

While the preferred cryptocurrency, bitcoin, hit an all-time excessive of greater than $68,000 in November, serving to to push the worth of the cryptocurrency market to $3 trillion, in keeping with CoinGecko, it has traded within the slim vary of $34,000-$44,000 for many of 2022 to this point.