According to a study by the Bank for International Settlements BIS, around three quarters of private investors worldwide have lost money with Bitcoin.
The study is based on the use of crypto exchange apps from 95 countries between 2015 and 2022. The vast majority of downloads occurred when the price of bitcoin surpassed $20,000, reports Bloomberg, citing a BIS working paper.
Martin Hock
Editor in Business.
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Assuming that each new user bought $100 worth of bitcoin in the month they installed the app and each month thereafter, 81 percent would have lost money.
The study raises “questions about the impact of greater crypto adoption on the economy and consumer welfare,” the authors wrote, according to Bloomberg.
Other results from the BIS - often referred to as the central bank of central banks - say that about 40 percent of app users were males under 35 and less than 35 percent of all users were female.
At the end of October, Dan Ashmore, crypto data analyst at Coinjournal, reported that for the first time since the acute Corona crisis in March 2020, more than half of the Bitcoin addresses were in the red.
With the slump in the course, the number of loss-making addresses had increased.
During the Corona crisis, the share of loss accounts was more than 55 percent, in the crypto bear market of 2018 it had risen to more than 60 percent.
However, the crypto bear market of that time is not comparable because there was no parallel price decline on the securities markets at the time.
Blind optimism is therefore not appropriate.
Ashmore's analysis was made when the Bitcoin price was just under $20,000.
Since then, the price has fallen by a further 15 percent, so that a new record for loss-making addresses does not currently appear unlikely.