88% of institutional respondents and 75% of retail investors surveyed in the first Bitstamp Crypto Pulse believe crypto will grow to universal and mainstream adoption
London, 26 April 2022 — A survey from global crypto exchange Bitstamp has found that investors overwhelmingly believe that crypto will overtake many traditional investment vehicles and see universal adoption.
The findings from the first Bitstamp Crypto Pulse survey — a comprehensive barometer of trust and adoption in crypto around the world — has found that 88% of institutional respondents and 75% of retail investors believe that crypto will see mainstream adoption within a decade. A further 80% of institutional investors reported that crypto will overtake traditional investment vehicles — showing a particularly bullish attitude from financial professionals on the future of crypto as an asset class. From the retail respondents, 54% believed that crypto will overtake traditional currencies within 10 years. The survey also found that levels of trust in crypto as an asset class is high, with 71% of investment professionals and 65% of everyday investors stating that they trust crypto.
The data comes from a survey of 28,563 respondents — including 5,450 senior institutional investment strategy decision makers and 23,113 retail investors — from 23 countries across North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, The Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.
Key findings from the survey include:
- 67% of retail respondents believe crypto is a trustworthy investment, while just 11% said that crypto was untrustworthy, showing only some hesitancy in investing
- 70% of institutional investor respondents said that crypto was a trustworthy investment, with 68% actively recommending crypto in investment strategies
- As a relative infant compared to traditional asset classes, crypto is trusted less than property ownership (Averaging around 80% for both retail and institutions) and shares and stocks (69% for retail; 77% for institutions). But the current level of trust indicates that the universal adoption of crypto in mainstream investing will continue to grow
- A key barrier to crypto investing can be found when considering trust in regulation: nearly half of retail investors and more than a third of institutional investors see crypto as unregulated. This demonstrates a need for stronger regulation in order to increase retail investor trust in crypto, which Bitstamp backs.
- Other investment vehicles in the Decentralized Finance ecosystem also show strong levels of trust despite their relative infancy, with stablecoins, NFTs, and blockchain networks seeing their levels of trust go above 60% across retail and institutional investors.
- Trust at a global level in crypto is primarily driven by developing countries, where trust in the traditional financial system is low: for example, in emerging economies, 79% say crypto is more trustworthy compared to 62% of more developed financial markets.
Julian Sawyer, CEO of Bitstamp, said, “The adoption of crypto and other digital assets is advancing at an unprecedented rate. In the last few years, cryptocurrencies have moved from the outskirts of the financial ecosystem to find themselves front and center of mainstream investing, with many of the largest trading venues in the world now catering to both retail and institutional crypto needs. We’ve seen interest propel in the years since the pandemic, and crypto is now part of the wider conversation in global macro-economic matters. Our survey shows something we have advocated over a long time: talking about survival of digital assets is firmly over — the question is now about evolution.”
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