While fresh data confirms that the crypto community continues to be male-dominated, the gender imbalance may be less extreme than previously thought.
A report published by fintech firm Bitpanda and market research company GlobalWebIndex on July 31 examined a broad set of data points to glean insight into the profile of European crypto investors.
One in five European crypto holders are women
The report notes that while prior research has suggested that as much as 90%+ of crypto investors are male, fresh analysis indicates that the gender distribution among European crypto holders is 78% male and 22% female.
Female crypto investors are 30% more likely to be in the top 10% of earners — 21% versus 16% of their male counterparts — and 3.3x more likely to be so than the “average woman.”
Both female and male crypto investors have different profiles from average European women and men. Female crypto investors are 1.6x more likely to work in finance than other women, as compared with male crypto investors being 2.6x more likely than other men to be in the industry. 2.3x more likely to work in marketing (as compared with 2.3x for men) and 1.9x more likely to work in banking (2.2x for men).
Beyond professions, when it comes to interests the report claims that female crypto holders are “more different from other women than male cryptocurrency holders are from other men” — showing greater divergences from other female internet users than do men in areas like computers, coding, tech, gambling and finance.
London burning
The conclusions drawn from the report’s broader profiling of European crypto investors’ lifestyle, finance & investment behaviors largely confirm prior research — as well as several stereotypes that have evolved around the industry.
In terms of geographic distribution, European markets with younger, more affluent and online populations tend to have more crypto holders. Switzerland has the highest rate of crypto ownership in Europe — at 7% of internet users and 14% of asset holders.
While the United Kingdom scores only 11th in terms of countries with the highest share of crypto holders, with 3x the average rate London itself has the highest concentration of crypto holders anywhere in Europe.
A United States-wide survey published earlier this month revealed that 9% of millennials chose crypto as their top long-term investment option — roughly threefold the percentage among older generations.