Bitcoin has lost about 45% of its value from its record high in November, but it didn’t dampen some retail investors’ interests, as they expect the price to bounce back and are “buying the dip,” a new study finds.
Roughly 21% of U.S. adults surveyed by data intelligence provider Morning Consult were considering buying bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.78% as of Jan. 24, when the cryptocurrency traded at as low as $ 32,983, according to a Tuesday report. The rate is unchanged from that at the beginning of November, when bitcoin climbed to its all-time high of $ 68,991, the report shows.
“That means consumers have so far proved less nervous about bitcoin’s price drop this time around compared with last summer, when its price plummeted,” Charlotte Principato, managing director at Morning Consult wrote in the report.
During bitcoin’s last selloff, the share of U.S. adults who were considering purchasing the crypto declined to 13% in July from 17% in May, the surveyed found.
Despite the recent downturn, bitcoin owners on average expect the crypto’s price to rise to around $ 55,223 in six months, according to the report. People who hold more than $ 500 in bitcoin are the most bullish, expecting the crypto to climb to $ 62,439 in the next six months.
In contrast, U.S. adults, on average, including those who don’t own the digital asset, believe that bitcoin’s price will be at around $ 27,136 for the same period.
In fact, most buyers invest in bitcoin because they think the price will rise, not because they believe in the technology or promise of digital assets, with 70% of those surveyed citing “making money” as their major reason for investing, the study found.
Generally speaking, bitcoin investors tend to be more tolerant to risk, and are four times more likely to accept financial risks than the general population, according to Morning Consults’s report.