13% Of Americans Have Owned Crypto, Says JPMorgan

Around 43 million Americans, or 13% of the nation’s total population, have owned crypto at some point, according to recent JPMorgan Chase research.

According to a report published on December 13 titled “The Dynamics and Demographics of the U.S. Household Crypto-Asset Use,” this percentage has dramatically climbed from its low point of 3% just before 2020.

The data comes from an analysis of checking account transactions from a sample of more than 5 million customers. It was found that six hundred thousand of the sample group’s customers made financial transfers to crypto accounts between 2020 and 2022.

The research also discovered that initial purchases made by Bitcoin owners usually occurred amid price spikes. More money is frequently deposited into crypto exchange accounts during this time than it is taken out. In other words, most people at this time kept their digital currency.

JPMorgan claims that this changed in early 2022 when the value of crypto declined. In recent months, the amount of money entering exchanges has hardly kept up with the amount leaving them.

Additionally, most respondents spent less than one month’s income on digital currency, with the median amount transferred coming to just $620. That’s probably for the best, as an increase in transfers accompanied the rise in values last year. The Institute found that the usual transfer occurred when the cost of a single bitcoin was about $43,900.

Decreasing Crypto Prices

JPMorgan claims this is brought on by decreasing crypto prices and a broader pattern of the U.S. savings rate declining since the epidemic. They said:

We view the rise and fall of crypto use since the onset of COVID as consistent with the joint relationship between retail flows and market prices seen in prior research. Additionally, the trend in crypto flows also tracks dynamics of household savings, which spiked to historic highs early in the pandemic but has begun to reverse.

If certain demographic groups are more inclined to buy digital currency than others, the survey looked at that. Men of all ages buy far more crypto than women. In addition, younger people buy it by a significant margin compared to older people.

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The present downturn in the market is attributable to industry shocks. Like the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin losing its peg in May and the collapse of the exchange FTX in November.