Profile of Canadian Crypto Owners
The typical Canadian crypto owner is more likely to be a full-time employed, highly educated 25-44 aged man. Ownership is overwhelmingly driven by investors, with 80% classifying as investors, while 20% qualify as non-investors, which is a rise compared to 13% in 2022.
Canadians primarily source their crypto information from family members and colleagues, with 34% leaning on their closest social circle for research, 23% using social media, and 22% embracing crypto experts, with 21% reading financial news media.
The level of passivity among digital asset owners has increased compared to 2022. Trades are down, with 17% of owners reporting they have not made any trades, and 53% said they traded their assets six times or more. A decline in activity is evident from the fact that 48% of crypto owners have not migrated their assets from the platform they bought them from, and 32% of owners prefer online crypto wallets for storage.
Central Bank of Canada Confirms the Negative Sentiment
Parallel to the Ontario Securities Commission report, the Central Bank of Canada published the “Digital Canadian Dollar Public Consultation Report,” which outlines skepticism among the population for the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), essentially a digital Canadian Dollar. The Central Bank report encompasses a larger sample size with 89,423 participants, and 95% have revealed they are informed about CBDC.
The Central Bank’s survey touches upon crypto. Although the underlying technology of CBDC has nothing to do with blockchain, there was interest in examining the country’s usage of digital assets. The numbers showed that 15% of the respondents hold digital assets.
However, about 82% of the surveyed participants expressed a desire for the Central Bank to stop efforts to implement the CBDC, focus on conventional payment methods, and mandate merchants to accept cash transactions. They also said they expect their opinion to fall on deaf ears and for the Central Bank to continue working on CBCD integration.