The trading platform asks people around the world about their hopes and aspirations for crypto investments.

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget recently completed a global study drilling into the financial goals and aspirations driving its user base. The survey of an anonymized representative sample from the general population of cryptocurrency investors included a diverse demographic range, including 1,512 participants randomly sampled from Europe, China, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and some English-speaking countries. Participants from the broader cryptocurrency investor population were contacted between this past May through August and included in the sample.

Some of the survey’s findings are surprising. Others less so but confirm what has up to now only been intuited.

Results are in

While it’s not surprising that crypto investors have keen interests in enhancing living standards and quality of life, it’s notable how these priorities shift from country to country. For example, 46% of South Korean investors aim to boost living standards, while 36% of Malaysians and Taiwanese prioritize family income.

An investor’s gender often has some bearing on financial goals. In most countries, female investors exhibit a greater interest in crypto investments aimed at improving the financial situation of their entire family. South Korea stands as an exception, with 17% of male investors expressing a desire to improve their family's financial situation through crypto investments, while only 12% of female investors share the same sentiment. Meanwhile, 49% of South Korean women who invest in crypto do so to improve their personal finances.

Women around the world also seem more likely to invest in crypto to fund education. In both Turkey and the U.S., more than one in four female investors use crypto investments to fund their children's schooling. Still, this finding is far from universal. In contrast, the proportions for South Korea and Japan in this regard stand at a far lower 5% and 4%, respectively.

How big an investment someone is willing to place on this new asset class differs by country. Chinese investors, for example, are more likely than others to keep over $100,000 in a crypto wallet; one in five of them do. The average investor elsewhere in the developed world allocates between $1,000 and $10,000. These varying investment amounts reflect the diverse financial landscapes and risk appetites of cryptocurrency investors across different geographies.

In some European countries and the U.S., users invest in cryptocurrencies with the dual aim of improving their own living standards and that of their families. For instance, in the U.S., Germany and the U.K., the percentages for these two goals are remarkably close. However, in some Asian countries, users display a stronger inclination towards improving their personal living standards. The most significant contrast is observed in South Korea, where 46% of respondents aim to enhance their own living standards through crypto investments, while only 16% do so for their families. Japanese users share a similar emphasis.

None of the above

South Korea, Canada and Turkey exhibited the highest demand for improving one's personal living standards, with results of 46%, 44% and 41%, respectively. In contrast, some cryptocurrency users in Malaysia and Taiwan view crypto investments more as a critical source of family income, with 36% of respondents in these markets prioritizing the enhancement of their family's quality of life over other financial goals.

While most investors surveyed were concerned about some combination of improving their own living standard or that of their family, and many were focused on educational expenses, Bitget asked about other reasons people might invest in crypto. These include buying big-ticket items, increasing leisure time, traveling abroad, paying off debt and hedging against inflation.

One interesting result of the study is that all of these secondary reasons were non-starters. These simply aren’t reasons why any great number of people are investing in crypto at the moment. Still, this makes for a good baseline, and it will be intriguing to see how this changes over the course of years.