Citigate Dewe Rogerson, a London-based financial services communications company, conducted some interesting research into the attitude of UK traders regarding cryptocurrency. The survey was conducted on the 28th of February, 2018.
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The main thing that can be taken from the results is that UK traders overwhelmingly think that the industry will continue to grow both in size and adoption.
1,042 UK-based traders took part in the survey. This can be considered representative; Pew Research usually interviews 1,500 people to ascertain the attitude of the entire UK population of just under 60 million.
Of the traders surveyed, 14 percent (146) had at some point purchased cryptocurrency, of which 104 still held some. In other words, 10 percent of UK-based traders currently hold cryptocurrency, which is a significant amount.
Perhaps even more remarkable is that of the cryptocurrency virgins, 1 in 5 answered that they would consider buying in the future. This means that roughly one third of UK traders have either dealt with cryptocurrency or show some interest in doing so in the future.
Of the thousand plus Cryptocurrencies currently active in the market, Citigate Dewe Rogerson estimates that between 39 and 42 have market caps that exceed $1 billion (although data from coinmarketcap shows only 22). The survey revealed that 22 percent of respondents think that this number will rise within five years, and more than half believe that the market capitalisation of the industry as a whole will be bigger by the end of this year.
1 in 5 however predict a dramatic fall in value in the next three years, and more (32 percent) believe that there will be a fall this year.
Moving on from simple pricing, the survey revealed that a significant majority see Blockchain technology as continuing to grow in use - 77 percent. Two thirds expect large firms to increase their holdings within 3 years.
The survey showed that 56 percent of those that hold cryptocurrency intend to buy more this year. In other words, almost half do not intend to. This can be interpreted as a negative in terms of the experience of investors.
This group was asked why they wouldn't be continuing to invest - 67 percent said that it was because the market was too volatile. On the other hand, less than half said that the lack of regulation was the reason, which marks a divergence in priorities between the trading public and authorities worldwide that are scrambling to regulate/outlaw the practice. Nonetheless, 73 percent of the people surveyed said that they expect regulation to tighten in the future, and that 44 percent think that this will lead more people to invest.
Phil Anderson, Executive Director of Citigate Dewe Rogerson, summarised the findings: “Cryptocurrency millionaires have been created, but many other investors have lost money. Despite the significant levels of volatility and price fluctuations, our research reveals many financial professionals remain optimistic about the future for cryptocurrencies."
