Just Who Is a ‘Typical’ Cryptocurrency Investor in 2021?

Gemini’s latest U.K. report confirms some long term beliefs, but also smashes others

Image: Licensed Adobe stock by Friend Stock

Recently, I was contacted by a student in Ireland via Twitter asking for information on the demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds of “typical” holders, users and investors of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It was only at this point I realized I didn’t have a good enough answer for him.

It’s not like I hadn't thought about it. In fact, it had become a bit of a fun pastime of mine to ask other people how they would describe such a person, on a purely curious and anecdotal basis, whenever the chance came up in conversation. I asked both crypto enthusiasts, who usually described some variation of themselves, and true no-coiners, who usually described someone other than themselves.

The results are entirely unscientific, but also quite interesting, because there are often similarities which haven’t changed much over the last couple of years. They usually fall into one of three categories:

• The classic “conspiracy theorist” who is paranoid about everything, believes aliens control the planet, COVID-19 is a way to control the population and the moon landings were faked. Always male, usually older.
• The “loner geek” who does everything online, has few real world friends, plays video games, binge watches TV shows and has secretly enjoyed lockdown. Usually male, usually younger, often living alone or at home.
• The “arrogant city trader” — young, rich, annoyingly good looking, self centered, probably lives in London, only in it for the money and would thrash you at squash without any mercy. Always male, typically mid 20’s — mid 30’s, lives in a cool flat and is active on Tinder. That’s him in the picture above.

While there are variations, the overwhelming consensus of my entirely anecdotal “research” (I use the term as loosely as possible) shows several reoccurring attributes that could be summarized as follows:

Your typical cryptocurrency investor is likely to be young, tech savvy, male, based in an affluent part of the U.K., single and perhaps a tad unlikeable.