STUDY FINDS
Crypto ownership was also associated with being male and high-income, consuming fringe media and reporting feelings of victimhood, in survey of 2,001 Americans.
Owning cryptocurrency may be associated with certain personality and demographic characteristics as well as a reliance on alternative or fringe social media sources, according to a study published July 3, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Shane Littrell from the University of Toronto, Canada, along with colleagues from the University of Miami, USA.
Anonymous trading and unregulated markets hallmark cryptocurrency’s unique subculture. While some consider the digital currency to be financially unreliable, hundreds of millions of global investors think otherwise.
This study identified various political, psychological, and social characteristics differentiating crypto investors from those who abstain. Existing studies (which generally include smaller sample sizes) profile crypto owners as psychologically non-normative and politically non-mainstream.
To test this, Littrell and colleagues polled 2,001 American adults in 2022, about 30% of whom responded “Yes” to owning or having owned crypto. Participants reported demographic information and other responses revealing their political, psychological, and social traits. The researchers conducted several bivariate (two-variable) correlational analyses, which measured how strongly crypto ownership is associated with other variables individually, as well as a multivariate (multi-variable) regression analysis, which attempts to identify the variables that are most important for predicting cryptocurrency ownership.
The correlational analyses showed that crypto ownership is associated with belief in conspiracy theories, support of political extremism, identification with non-left-right political orientations (e.g., Christian nationalism), and the “Dark Tetrad” of personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism).
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