Crypto assets in Austria: an assessment of their prevalence and the motives of their holders

In this study, we analyze data from a preliminary survey designed to evaluate the inclusion of questions regarding crypto asset holdings of households in the Austrian segment of the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). Our objective is to examine the extent of crypto asset ownership within the Austrian population and to explore the motivations behind these holdings. Our findings reveal that a consistent, albeit small, proportion of individuals hold relatively modest quantities of crypto assets. Demographically, crypto asset holders tend to be younger than the average and predominantly male. Notably, a significant proportion of crypto asset owners (41%) in Austria initiated their investments in 2019. On average, they hold relatively low amounts of crypto assets, with the median value hovering around EUR 6,000 and the 90th percentile near EUR 6,500. Even when evaluating across various levels of crypto asset holdings, the average proportion of these assets in crypto asset owners’ overall financial portfolios remains below 30% across the full distribution of crypto assets and below 15% for owners whose holdings exceed EUR 5,000. The primary motivations cited for owning crypto assets are their speculative potential for profiting from market fluctuations (36% of stated reasons), owners’ curiosity about new technology (27%) and their desire to diversify portfolios of risky assets (12%).