A crypto-based survey conducted by the Bank of Canada suggests that Bitcoin investors tend to have “low financial literacy”. The research paper was published in Canada’s newspaper The Globe and Mail. The study states that despite BTC investors having in-depth knowledge of blockchain technology, they mostly struggle with basic financial literacy. Therefore, the study suggests that they get exposed to bigger financial risks and have higher possibilities of facing losses.
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The study published by the Bank of Canada claims that financially-savvy Canadians are less likely to own Bitcoin and other cryptos. Financially-savvy Canadians have stayed away from BTC despite being more aware of it in recent years, claims the research.
“Canadians who are financially literate are more likely to be aware of bitcoin but less likely to own it,” the research said.
Also, around half of the respondents who trade BTC said that owning Bitcoin has affected them by negative events. They detailed that price crashes, scams, and data breaches led them to face losses than the other way around.
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In no surprise, the study shed light that the majority of Bitcoin owners are men and come from high household incomes. The findings come from a series of surveys conducted from 2016 to 2020. The ownership is “concentrated among young, educated men with high household income and low financial literacy,” read the findings.
However, cryptocurrencies entered the mainstream only in 2021 after Elon Musk announced he invested in Dogecoin and repeatedly tweeted about it. However, the point to be noted is that cryptos only entered the mainstream, but are still not considered fully ‘mainstream’.
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Bitcoin Investors Don’t Fancy it as a Means of Payment
The research by the Bank of Canada reveals that the majority of Bitcoin holders see it as a vehicle of investment to grow their wealth and don’t fancy BTC to turn into a means of payment. Only 15% of the respondents said that they own the asset for making payments and paying their bills.
Crypto investors in Canada are relatively thin as an estimated only 1.2 million people trade in cryptos, which is 3.2% of entire Canada’s population. Millennials are the largest group of crypto owners in Canada, with 31.68% owning and trading with cryptocurrencies.