Gem App CEO Feels Crypto is Undergoing Wild West Phase

By Dmitriy

BTC Wires: A recent survey conducted by Gem and Harris’ cryptocurrency app suggests that cryptocurrency is still in its “wild west phase”.

The findings of the survey which reached out to 2000 respondents revealed that only 8 percent of Americans owned a personal stake in the virtual currencies. The figure is rather inconsequential as compared to 52 percent, the percentage of public owned stake in the traditional joint stock companies. Another pessimistic fact established by the survey was that 41 percent of the survey participants did not wish to invest in the crypto assets ever.

The assessment also revealed that people who earn more than $100000 a year are less likely to invest in digital assets. On the other hand, people with lower salaries were expected to invest and try their luck in crypto assets. These findings are assisted by the survey figures, where it’s stated that 6 percent of the people who earn above $100000 own cryptocurrencies while the percentage of people who earn $50k-$75k and have their investments in this asset class is 11 percent.

Regarding the findings mentioned above, Micah Winkelspecht, the CEO of Gem said,

“The cryptocurrency space is still in its “Wild West” phase, so there’s potentially some of that (risk taking) going on. When you have less to protect, you are more willing to take the risk.”

These figures question the rationale behind the hesitation regarding investment in digital assets. The market volatility, regulatory uncertainty, and the lack of accessibility to digital investments are the reasons why investors are cautious about investing in this nascent asset class.

However, there was a ray of hope in 20 percent of the respondents who said access to more information about the digital currencies could spark the investors’ interest in virtual investment. This significant part of the surveyed people mostly included youth, who are more digitally informed in comparison to the rest. Winkelspecht shared his optimism as he noted:

“We find that younger people with less income are more willing to put money in crypto. My guess is that crypto is of the digital age. And the younger generation is of the digital age and used to doing everything on the internet.”