Investing in cryptocurrencies is an indisputable reality that regulators have had to start responding to, so far with little impact. In Spain, only regulations that regulate their advertising have been developed, so that advertisers clearly warn the private investor of the risks, but community regulations that deal with the treatment of cryptoassets and offer their investors the guarantees they need are still pending. apply to other types of investment assets.
While waiting for this regulation, the CNMV is focusing its efforts on risk warning, with a discreet result for the moment, according to the study published today by the regulator on cryptocurrencies and the effectiveness of the measures promoted so far. Investor penetration of these assets is still low. According to the survey commissioned by the CNMV for the preparation of the study, only 6.8% of respondents have ever invested in cryptocurrencies. And only 9% of them devote a fixed monthly allocation to this type of asset, which represents, in any case, less than 5% of their capital. Among current investors, just over half, 52% do so occasionally when there are declines in the value of that currency or they have money to invest
But the study reveals a striking fact, recognized by the CNMV. Thus, 40% of investors in crypto-currencies believe that they are regulated by law and 29% consider that they present the same risks as any other investment. Significant percentages that point to the lack of knowledge that still exists within the community of cryptographic asset investors, who are more familiar with this type of asset than the general population, and who may therefore be at the center of unexpected losses.
The didactic work of the regulators, and which has joined the efforts of the CNMV, the Bank of Spain and the government itself, when the warning about the risks of investing in cryptocurrencies is already bearing fruit, although only with limits, according to the study shows.
Advertising risk warnings serve to get at least half of investors thinking. Specifically, 32.4% of cryptocurrency investors admit to having searched the Internet for more information about cryptocurrencies and their risks after seeing the warnings contained in the advertisements. And another 18.3% go to the site where the advertising information is provided. But 49.3% acknowledge that they do not react in any particular way after having read the warnings. In this sense, 40% assure that they were previously aware of the risk associated with crypto assets, although another 30% recognize that the advertising warning makes them more aware of the risks of their investment.
Among the most frequently chosen reasons for investing in cryptocurrencies, the search for high profitability stands out, followed by the consideration of them as a means of payment of the future and that the technology on which they are created is worth of trust. This third reason is significantly higher among young people under 24, according to the CNMV.
Despite this, 61.3% of cryptocurrency investors admit to having a high speculative degree and 59.7% accept that the loss or theft of private keys can mean the loss of cryptocurrencies without the possibility of recovering them. On the other hand, only 17.3% of investors fully agree that liquidity in cryptocurrencies is scarce, so it is sometimes not possible to sell at the desired time and significant losses can be incurred.
Composite portrait: men with a university education
Profile. According to the study published by the CNMV, the profile of the cryptocurrency investor corresponds to that of a man with an average age of around 40 years, although with a particular weight of ages between 25 and 44 years old. Thus, there would be 66% of male investors, against 34% of women. 35.7% of investors are in the age bracket between 35 and 44 years old and 27.7% between 25 and 34 years old. 9.3% of investors are between 16 and 24 years old.
Studies. Most cryptocurrency investors have a university education, 43% of the total according to the sample collected by the CNMV study. And most of them, 41%, have incomes above 3,000 euros per month. 10.7% of investors have incomes that do not exceed 1,000 euros per month. The CNMV study on cryptocurrencies was carried out on a sample of 1,500 cases of respondents aged 16 to 70, as well as a complementary sample of 300 cases of cryptocurrency investors.