JP Morgan's Research Finds 13 Percent Of The United States Population Holds Cryptocurrency

As many as 13 percent of the US population holds crypto. (photo: dock. Pixabay)

JAKARTA - About 13% of the population in the United States or 43 million people have held cryptocurrencies at some point in their lives. This data comes from new research created by JPMorgan Chase.

According to a December 13 report entitled "The Dynamics and Demographics of US Household Crypto-Asset Use", this number has increased dramatically since before 2020, when that figure was only about 3%.

The latest data from JPMorgan comes from an analysis of the transfer of checking accounts from samples of more than 5 million subscribers. It was found that 600,000 subscribers in this sample group transferred cash to crypto accounts at several points during the period 2020 to 2022.

The study also notes that cryptocurrency holders usually make their first crypto purchases during the crypto price hike. During this time, the amount of cash sent to crypto exchange accounts is usually far more than the cash spent. In other words, most people hold their cryptocurrencies during this period.

According to JPMorgan, this trend changed in early 2022 as crypto prices fell. In recent months, cash transfers to crypto exchanges have only slightly exceeded cash transfers from them.

JPMorgan said that this is the result of a decline in crypto prices and a broader downward trend in savings rates in the United States since the pandemic.

We have seen the ups and downs of use of crypto since the beginning of COVID consistent with the mutual link between retail flows and market prices seen in previous studies. In addition, the trend of crypto flows is also tracking the dynamics of household savings, which surged to the highest level in history at the start of the pandemic but began to turn around," said JP Morgan in his blog, quoted by Cointelegraph.

The report also considers whether certain demographic groups are more likely to buy crypto. It is found that men of all ages buy crypto significantly more than women. Younger people also buy significantly more than older people.

For example, the report found that more than 25% of millennial men had purchased crypto, while only about 12% of millennial women and 5% baby boomers of men had them.

The study also found that crypto holdings are relatively small for most individuals, with the median flux equal to salaries being taken home less than a week.

On the other hand, about 15% of crypto owners have more than a month's salary invested in cryptocurrencies.

Meanwhile, BTC has dropped from its 2022 high of 47,459 US dollars in March to 17,208 US dollars at the time of writing. While Ether has fallen from 3,521 US dollars in April to 1,273 US dollars at the time of writing.

The fall of this crypto market is the result of market shocks such as the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin which lost its foothold in May and the FTX crypto exchange went bankrupt in November.

Trading costs have fallen across many crypto exchanges, and Coinbase has even stated that its revenue has fallen by nearly 50%.

But despite the decline in crypto prices and trading activity, the new report shows that crypto holdings have been increasing over the past few years.