An average owner of crypto assets in Britain would be young, male and hodler. And he considers cryptocurrencies to be a “fun investment”. These are the findings of the new investigation, carried out by Her Majesty Revenue and Customs (HMRC) with the help of the investigative agency Kantar UK and published on Tuesday.
With a quantitative approach, The research sought to establish the prevalence of crypto asset ownership, the types and amounts held, as well as the platforms individuals use to purchase crypto assets.. It consisted of a survey with a representative sample of 5,916 UK adults, of whom 713 owned crypto assets.
The report revealed that 10% of UK citizens own or have owned cryptocurrencies, and that 55% have never sold any (equivalent to 5% of the adult population). Only 7% currently own more than £5,000 ($6,000 at press time) in value, while 52% of current owners hold holdings of up to £1,000 ($1,200).
Other significant findings are not a surprise: cryptocurrency owners tend to be younger than the general population, with 76% being 45 years old, and are mostly male (69%). A vast majority of them own cryptocurrencies (79%), while the second most popular asset type is utility tokens (20%).
An important piece of information concerns the common trading pattern: 68% of owners buy cryptocurrencies most frequently on “centralized exchanges” and 81% use these exchanges to sell or trade their assets.
Most of the owners declared to have made a profit (63%) during the last year by disposing of crypto assets, 14% claim to have made a loss, and similarly, 14% revealed to have broken even. As the survey was conducted between February 2021 and June 2021, this data should be attributed to 2020.
On July 5, HMRC issued a call for an evidence document, outlining its intention to study whether the administrative inconvenience and costs can be reduced for taxpayers involved in the cryptocurrency industry.
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