In brief
- A survey of UK investors found that 30% feel it's too late to invest in cryptocurrency.
- “The Great Cryptocurrency Report,” asked 2,000 UK consumers about their investment plans amid 2021's economic uncertainty.
Almost a third of UK investors said they would not invest in Bitcoin, or other cryptocurrencies, because they feel they’ve “missed the boat,” according to a study published today by the Parliament Street think tank (no relation to the UK’s legislative organ.)
Bitcoin has seen gains of 630% in the past year and a quarter of those polled revealed that they would have made over £1 million ($1.4 million) profit if they moved all of their assets into Bitcoin at the start of 2020.
The independent survey, “The Great Cryptocurrency Report,” polled 2,000 UK consumers in the final week of February 2021 to gauge their investment plans amid the economic uncertainty released by the coronavirus pandemic.
Over a third of the survey respondents said they expected the price of Bitcoin to rise even further this year, to £50,000 ($70,000) and 18% predicted a £100,000 valuation by the end of 2021.
Some 29% said that they would never have considered investing in cryptocurrency before the most recent Bitcoin bull run, which has been buoyed by PayPal’s plans to introduce cryptocurrency to its platform and the entry of institutional investors, such as MicroStrategy and Tesla.
Almost a quarter of the respondents pinpointed Elon Musk’s Bitcoin endorsement and said it had given them more confidence to invest in cryptocurrency. In February, Musk's Telsa purchased $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, leading the cryptocurrency to surge from $39,244 to a high of $43,233 in just 20 minutes, according to CoinGecko.
In contrast, traditional assets, such as stocks and shares, were perceived as “too risky” in the current economic climate by 37% of the investors.
However, 52% said that they are still more likely to invest in traditional assets, such as gold, stocks, or shares, rather than cryptocurrency. And 55% said that they have no plans to invest in cryptocurrency this year.
But the picture is markedly different among investors who already have exposure to Bitcoin.
Another, smaller, survey of 100 wealth managers and institutional investors, shared with Decrypt by London-based crypto fund Nickel Digital Asset Management, found that 85% of respondents already holding Bitcoin plan to increase their exposure to the asset over the next two years.
The FOMO is real.