Students, retirees, millionaires: who buys cryptocurrency?

Since the beginning of the fervor of ICO in early 2017, the investment in cryptocurrencies has become a millionaire global trend creator. Among those pursuing this new class of digital assets, how many are real professional investors and how much are truly profitable?

eToro unveils its key statistics
Established in 2007, eToro is internationally recognized as the foremost social trading platform for retail investors around the world. In addition to traditional securities trading, eToro introduced cryptocurrency as a tradable asset on its platform in 2017.

eToro compiled data from March 2017 to February 2018, giving an overview of the populations that invest the most in cryptocurrency and the extent of their investment experience

Age, experience, profitability
According to eToro, the majority of cryptocurrency investors today are men between the ages of 18 and 35 and are either current students or professions in the fields of sales / marketing, computer / informatics, and financial services.

Despite their risk tolerance, these young investors continue to fill their portfolios mainly with the most popular coins on the market: Bitcoin, Ripple and Ethereum.

Interestingly, it is evident that portfolios are growing more and more heavily with older investors. From this data, the oldest age group (55 years and over) holds the most Bitcoin Cash, NEO and Stellar compared to younger groups, which contrasts with the more avaricious investor.

As a developing industry in both application and investment, cryptocurrency attracts a wide range of users with varying degrees of experience - most of them consider themselves novices.

Those with more expertise (intermediate or professional level knowledge) are a minority of the total cryptocurrency trading population.

This lack of experience suggests that most novice investors are not likely to generate huge profits. However, according to eToro data, it is clear that most users have positive returns on their investments in specific parts.

Although this information does not reveal the history of the duration of the investment, the highest average return appears to come from Ripple Investments (XRP) and the largest average loss comes from investments in Bitcoin Cash (BCH).