Fidelity: 58% of Investors Have Money in Crypto

A rocky cryptocurrency market hasn’t been enough to dissuade people from investing in digital currency, a new survey by Fidelity Investments found.

The company’s findings — released Thursday (Oct. 27) — showed that 58% of institutional investors invested in digital assets during the first half of 2022, a six-point increase from the prior year, while 74% plan to invest in the future.

“While the markets have faced headwinds in recent months, we believe that digital assets fundamentals remain strong and that the institutionalization of the market over the past several years has positioned it to weather recent events,” Fidelity Digital Assets President Tom Jessop said in a news release. “Institutional investors are experienced in managing through cycles, and the largely inherent factors that they cited as appealing in this study will likely remain as the market emerges from this period.”

The survey found that digital asset ownership is higher in Asia (69%) than in Europe (67%) or the United States (42%). Europe and the U.S. have seen respective 11-point and 9-point increases in ownership since 2021. In both cases, this increase was fueled mostly by wealthier investors and — among Europeans — financial advisors.

The findings came one day after comments by Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero that her agency could reduce risks associated with crypto by regulating the industry.

“Congress can address financial stability risks by providing additional authority to the CFTC,” she said at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association conference in New York.

She added that the U.S. shouldn’t rush regulation and that any rules should treat the crypto industry the same as the traditional financial industry.

Pointing out that traditional financial organizations have begun to show greater interest in crypto, Goldsmith Romero said interconnections between the two industries will increase risk.

“[T]his spring, unregulated crypto markets revealed their vulnerabilities to similar financial stability risks as traditional finance, with parallel themes from the 2008 financial crisis,” Goldsmith Romero said.

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