5% of Ontarians own cryptoassets, most people don’t understand them: OSC

By Armina Ligaya, The Canadian Press | June 28, 2018 | Last updated on June 28, 2018
3 min read

A study by the Ontario Securities Commission suggests 5% of Ontarians own what the regulator calls “cryptoassets” such as Bitcoin or Ether and awareness is increasing, but knowledge is lacking.

The online survey conducted in March also showed that 1.5% of respondents say they have participated in an initial coin offering, in which investors usually buy digital tokens that can be kept, sold or traded.

However, when the 2,500 Ontarians surveyed were asked to identify true statements about these digital assets, just 34% were able to do so, according to the OSC.

“We did find there is a lot of awareness of the sector, and people are increasingly participating or being approached, but that understanding and knowledge and comprehension of the sector is lagging,” said Tyler Fleming, the director of the regulator’s investor office.

Read: CSA publishes guidance on coin and token offerings

The survey comes about a month after the provincial regulator joined forces with its peers in the U.S. and Canada to warn investors about cryptocurrency-related investment schemes.

Dubbed Operation Cryptosweep, the project has resulted in dozens of inquiries and investigations, and pending or completed enforcement actions related to initial coin offerings or cryptocurrencies since the beginning of May, according to the North American Securities Administrators Association.

The OSC also said in April it was gathering information on several cryptocurrency trading platforms after it received a number of complaints.

The B.C. Securities Commission and the Bank of Canada have also issued warnings about investing in cryptocurrencies. In December, central bank governor Stephen Poloz sounded the alarm on Bitcoin, calling the purchase of the cryptocurrency “closer to gambling than investing.”

Some of Canada’s biggest banks earlier this year halted the purchase of cryptocurrencies using their credit cards as well.

Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin has plummeted since the beginning of the year, from roughly US$13,440 on Jan. 1 to US$6,100 on Thursday, according to Bitstamp.net.

The OSC’s survey suggests that on top of the 5% who currently own a cryptoasset, an additional 4% of Ontarians say they used to own one.

Men aged 18 to 34 were more likely to report owning a cryptoasset, at 14%.

Most people aren’t spending huge amounts of money on cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, with just over half saying they spent less than $1,000 or no money at all to acquire them.

The survey suggested that roughly 5% of cryptoasset owners did spend between $10,000 and $19,999, and another 4% spent more than $20,000.

Most cryptoasset owners made their purchases using cash savings, at 55%, but 26% said they used their credit card. Fourteen percent received them for free.

Of the purchases, 37% were made within the past year, but nearly as many were made during the past three months, at 35%.

As well, the study showed that 12% of Ontarians had been approached about or sought information themselves about an ICO. Most were approached via social media, at 39%, followed by friends or family at 33%.

“It’s clear that interest in this sector is not going to disappear any time soon,” said Fleming.

“So as time goes by, as people become more familiar with the product, we would certainly expect people to be doing more research, understanding the different types of products and risks out there.”

The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error as they are not a random sample and therefore are not necessarily representative of the whole population.

Read the survey here.

Also read:

Regulators participate in international crypto crackdown

OSC issues warning about 5 cryptocurrency firms

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Armina Ligaya, The Canadian Press

Armina Ligaya is a reporter with The Canadian Press, a national news agency headquartered in Toronto and founded in 1917.