One in ten European households has already invested in cryptocurrencies, estimates the ECB
Representation of the virtual currencies Bitcoin, Ethereum, DogeCoin, Ripple and Litecoin.
© REUTERS - Dado Ruvic
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
While the cryptosphere is in turmoil, an ECB study estimates that one in ten households in the euro zone have already invested in bitcoin and other digital currencies.
Since the appearance of the first bitcoin around 2008, the European Central Bank has constantly sounded the alarm about the risks incurred by the extreme volatility of these decentralized assets, which are beyond the control of banks.
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The European Central Bank (ECB) wanted to measure the consequences of the collapse of cryptocurrencies on the financial situation and the purchasing power of households in the euro zone.
For this, she first investigates their habits in six countries: Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
She discovered that on average 10% of households surveyed held one or more cryptocurrencies, to varying degrees, depending on the country.
This ranges from 6% in France to 14% in the Netherlands.
The majority of people own less than 1,000 euros in crypto, almost 30% between 1,000 and 5,000 euros, and 13% between 5,000 and 10,000 euros.
The remaining 20% have them 10,000 euros or more.
The buyers of these virtual currencies are mainly young graduate men, those who have means, but those who have modest incomes.
With the risk of losing all their stake, when the value collapses, hammers the ECB, which asks that the European authorities supervise
these assets “
urgently ”.
Crypto-assets are highly risky.
Yet interest in them has grown, with connections with the finance industry increasing.
If this continues, crypto-assets will pose a risk to financial stability.
Read why in a preview of our Financial Stability Review https://t.co/rsXBfRdkRN pic.twitter.com/TER0hr2hWp
— European Central Bank (@ecb) May 24, 2022
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European Union
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