That survey, conducted by securities trading platform SharesPost in July and eliciting responses from 2,490 retail investors and 528 accredited investors, found that current cryptocurrency owners remain highly-bullish on the nascent asset class, though they now expect mainstream adoption to take longer than they had when asked earlier in the year.
Respondents in both groups now expect cryptocurrency to achieve widespread adoption in 2025, whereas in January — when bitcoin and most altcoins were trading at or near their all-time highs — they forecast that this would occur in 2020. They fingered lack of education and commercial use cases as one of the most pressing challenges for blockchain adoption.
This muted forecast dealt a moderate blow to short-term outlooks among accredited investors, and respondents in this group are less likely than in January to expect cryptocurrency prices to rise or plan to purchase more coins within the next 12 months. Nevertheless, a majority (59 percent) still plan to increase their holdings over the next year, and 57 percent expect prices to rise by next July.
Retail investors, however, maintain a rosier outlook. More consumers, 72 percent, said that they plan to deepen their cryptocurrency stakes this year, which represented a slight increase from January. Moreover, 66 percent said that they expect prices to rise during that timespan.
“Based on our survey, crypto investors haven’t lost faith and are planning to buy more,” said Rohit Kulkarni, managing director and head of research at SharesPost, in a statement. “Importantly, this survey indicates that this correction is separating long-term believers from short-term day traders. Investors remain bullish on Bitcoin and Ethereum over the next 18 months because they are the leading digital currencies globally. Both enjoy relatively low correlation to other asset classes and can be an ideal way for investors to diversify a portfolio of stocks and bonds.”
Notably, investment portfolios differed between accredited and retail investors, with high rollers being more likely to concentrate their holdings in altcoins. While consumers were most likely to own bitcoin (BTC), followed by ether (ETH) and litecoin (LTC), accredited investor portfolios most often held ETH, followed by BTC and ripple (XRP).