FRANKFURT (Reuters) – One in ten households in the euro zone have already bought crypto-assets like bitcoin and the wealthiest are only slightly more likely to do so than the poorest, a study by the European Central Bank (ECB) shows. ) published on Tuesday.
While the “crypto” market has been going through severe turbulence for several weeks, the authorities are trying to measure the potential impact of this situation on the purchasing power and financial situation of households.
The ECB survey, which covered six eurozone countries (Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands) shows that 10% of households surveyed hold one or more crypto-assets, a proportion that ranges from 6% in France to 14% in the Netherlands.
About 37% of the people concerned specified holding less than 1,000 euros in “crypto”, 29% between 1,000 and 4,999 euros and 13% between 5,000 and 9,999 euros, the rest displaying assets of 10,000 euros or more.
In all countries, the richest 20% of respondents are more inclined to own crypto-assets, but on the contrary, the proportion of households owning them is higher among low-income households than in the intermediate categories.
“On average, the most highly educated young adult men are more inclined to invest in crypto-assets in the countries studied”, specifies the ECB.
The central bank has long warned that this type of asset is not suitable for most individual investors. In the study published on Tuesday, it calls on European Union authorities to “urgently” implement new rules on crypto-assets “given the rapid evolution of crypto and the increase in risks”. .
The data released on Tuesday is in an article published by the ECB’s Financial Stability Review. The survey on consumer expectations, carried out every month since 2020, is still at the experimental stage and its results are not published in full.
(Report Francesco Canepa, French version Marc Angrand, edited by Sophie Louet)
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