Brief
20 Dec '22
Since the early 2010s, the rise of so-called cryptocurrencies has received significant attention from financial market participants, policymakers, and academics. Cryptocurrencies are digital or virtual currencies (such as bitcoin, Ethererum, Litecoin, and many others) in which transactions are verified and records are maintained by a decentralized, distributed ledger system using cryptography, rather than a centralized authority.
Cryptocurrency markets have gained a reputation for high volatility in recent years, with prices rising and falling rapidly over relatively short periods; however, online prices have been on a significant upward trend since early 2019, leading to a perception of cryptocurrencies as lucrative investment vehicles. In January 2022, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Consumer Finance Institute (CFI), along with economists from the Federal Reserve Board, included cryptocurrency ownership-related questions and opinions in wave 11 of the IFC COVID-19 Consumer Survey. The goal was to establish a basic understanding of the penetration that cryptocurrencies have achieved among the survey population and to identify differences in adoption and attitude between demographic groups.
This research report presents the findings from the January 2022 survey. Future survey work will be crucial in generating data to assess any impact that market changes in 2022 may have had on these metrics.
