Security News > 2022 > November > Swiss bankers warn: Three quarters of retail Bitcoin investors are in the red

Somewhere between 73 and 81 percent of retail Bitcoin buyers are likely to have lost money on their investment, according to research published Monday by the Bank of International Settlements.

The Switzerland-based bank for other central banks wanted to understand why retail investors continue to participate in cryptocurrency exchanges to trade tokens like Bitcoin.

"[A]t the time of writing, 73-81 percent of users had likely lost money on their investments in cryptocurrencies," the paper reveals.

"[A]pproximately 70 percent of customers lose money every quarter and on average 100 percent of a retail customer's investment is lost in less than 12 months," he wrote [PDF].

In 2016, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority said that 82 percent of retail investors trading contracts for differences - financial contracts that pay the difference in the settlement price between opening and closing trades - lost money.

Retail Bitcoin investors don't appear to be getting those odds.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/11/16/bitcoin_investors_lose/