A majority of Americans not do any research into cryptocurrency before making the decision to invest, a survey finds.
More than one-in-four Americans are looking to cryptocurrency to make a quick buck, a new survey found, while over half of them don’t know what they’re buying.
The study by the financial information company Invezz was intended to explore how consumers will be using cryptocurrencies in 2022.
Making a Quick Profit
Among the other things, the survey of 2,500 Americans found that 27% of the respondents see crypto as a way of making a quick profit.
Twenty percent of the respondents see crypto as a viable long-term investment, while 12% said that they are being encouraged by people around them.
And while cryptocurrency analysts repeatedly stress the importance of conducting research before making any kind of investment or decision, a whopping 54% of the respondents said they did not do any research into cryptocurrency before making the decision to invest.
The importance of research is perhaps best illustrated by a report from Chainalysis that found scammers ripped off over $7.7 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2021, up 81% from the previous year.
Thirteen percent said that they researched between six and twelve months, while 9% invested between one and four weeks of their time to get familiar with the topic before investing.
Six percent said they spent less than a week researching.
51% Have No Knowledge of Cryptocurrencies
Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they have no knowledge about cryptocurrencies at all.
In addition, over half of Americans do not envision cryptocurrencies ever overtaking fiat or to function as a valid alternative for money.
However, 14% of the respondents see this adaptation taking place in the next one to five years, while 13% anticipates this happening in the next five to ten years.
Only 7% expect this to happen as soon as within the next year.
As to which coin appeals to them, 38% of respondents who said they were interested in investing would be most inclined to invest in Bitcoin, while 15% preferred investing in Ethereum.
