The Financial Conduct Authority recently carried out some survey based research on UK knowledge about and attitudes towards crypto assets.
Well, I say recently, the survey was conducted by YouGov on the FCA's behalf back in August 2024, based on a nationally representative sample of 2,199 UK adults, including a boost of cryptoasset users.
The headline findings are that....
- 93% of UK adults have heard of cryptoassets
- 12% of UK adults own cryptoassets – extrapolated to around 7 million adults
Growing awareness of crypto...
Awareness of crypto has risen over the last year from 91% in 2022 to a nearly universal 93% this year, in 2024, and that's up from just 73% in 2020.
Growing breadth of awareness...
At least among crypto holders.
Almost everyone has heard of Bitcoin, regardless of whether they hold any cryptos or not.
And then ETH and DOGE are the next two most-known - 70% of crypto holders know of these two, and just over 20% on non-crypto holders.
It's ridiculous that DOGE is as well known as ETH, sort of insta-undermine for the alts.
As for everything else, there's 30-50% that's heard of the next largest by market cap among crypto holders, but VERY low numbers outside of crypto that heard of anything other than the top three.
12% of the UK population own crypto
That is 7 MILLION PEOPLE!YOWSER!
And we are up a lot from 2020, the proportion has trebled. I would say that is pretty bullish, right there!
Value of holdings....
So most people own a TINY amount... 60% own < £1000.
Only 4% own £10K or more.
Sweet bejeesus that means nearly everyone I know in the crypto space is in that top 4%, probably most of them top 1%!
We are just a bunch of weirdos. I mean we are RIGHT to have so much vested, but weirdos by normal financial standards...
The average value of crypto held by people increased from £1,595 to £1,842 in the last two years.
People see crypto as less of a punt...
I thought this one of the most interesting aspects of the report...
People are more likely to buy crypto in 2024 as part of a wider portfolio, the numbers buying as a gamble has decreased a lot from 38% to 26% over four years.
Although more people expect to make money quickly today than in 2020, that's probably gonna mean a lot of people getting burned this bull run!
Very low levels of scam victims....
Net yeses to 'have been a victim, or encountered sus activities' is 26%.
Compared to the scam of quantitative easing or governments lying to us about budgets where we are ALL victims, you are MUCH LESS LIKELY TO BE A VICTIM OF FRAUD if you're into crypto.
Crypto adoption in the UK final thoughts...
Crypto awareness and adoption have clearly grown in the last two years, and especially over the past four years.
It's encouraging to see nearly universal awareness of it, even if only relatively small numbers, 12% own crypto assets.
I can only see this level of interest and awareness increasing in the coming months...
To read more about the report, here is the link....
https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/research/research-note-cryptoassets-consumer-research-2024