A recently released FCA study shows that 1.9% million adults in the UK hold crypto assets which is a number on the rise. Today, the FCA published a research note on Cryptoasset Consumer Research.
The FCA worked close at hand with the Government Bank of England to understand how this market is evolving in the UK. A total of 2,681 people participated in this study, answering a questionnaire about personal knowledge on the subject, ownership, purchase and interaction.
Cryptocurrencies are commonly used by traders who speculate financially to better their investment growth. For this, they choose brokers to gain access to the markets. 5% of UK citizens use brokers that are based in the United Kingdom such as IG Markets.
That leaves 83% of the population using non-UK based exchanges, such as Admiral Markets or AvaTrade.
Since their FCA Consumer Research Study in 2019, knowledge on what a cryptocurrency is has risen. Before, 58% of participants did not know what a cryptocurrency was, and this year only 27% had never heard of the word.
These numbers could have changed due to the media’s important act of informing the population, as said in this FCA research, “the media is playing an increasingly important role in introducing consumers to cryptocurrency”. In this way, 92% of those who participated could identify the correct definition of what a cryptoasset is.
From here, various opinions have been emitted about the regulatory protections and price movements. Shown in numbers, “89% of participants understood the lack of regulatory protection, and believed they would not receive the same protections as regulated investment products”.
Where the UK cryptos are held
As for the favourite virtual coin, Bitcoin is the leading choice with a 63% of popularity, followed by Ether (33%) and Litecoin (22%). One Bitcoin is worth around £7,375, which could explain why 73% of cryptocurrency owners are part of the socioeconomic group ABC1.
In this same line, 50% of cryptocurrency owners hold less than £260. That leaves 80% of the crypto wealth in hands of 1% of the UK population, of which 79% are males.
As said in the research, “the typical cryptocurrency owner holds small sums of cryptocurrencies. The mean is greater than the median due to a small number of consumers who hold larger sums”.
