A new study published by Spain’s National Securities Market Commission (NSMC), sheds light on how many Spaniards are buying and how many are aware of crypto. Posted on August 4, the survey shows results collected from May to June 2022 from 1,500 participants.

The results show that 75% of participants have heard of cryptocurrencies or at least know about these digital assets at some level. Despite these results, the survey claims that the “general knowledge” about these assets is “very limited”.

The result shows that over 45% of the respondents have heard about crypto and 22,2% claim to understand the basis of these digital assets. In contrast, only 24% of respondents say to be unfamiliar or have no knowledge about digital assets.

Furthermore, 32% of respondents claim to be familiar with the current regulatory status of cryptocurrencies in Spain. Social media platforms are one of the key sources of information on cryptocurrencies for survey participants.

Currently, 7% of these investors are actively participating in the crypto market with most people allocating around 5% of their capital. 52% of respondents said they increase their positions when the market trends to the downside with only 10% investing “regularly”.

The majority of these investors are young people under 34 years old. The rest of the participants said to be interested in investing in cryptocurrencies (10.2%) while the majority (82.9%) said that they won’t be purchasing digital assets.

The survey also found that most crypto investors in Spain have advanced studies. 43.3% of respondents attended university while 28% claimed to have finished high school. In that sense, the study claims that 64.3% of digital assets investors are in the mid to high social class with 12.3% in the high class and 17.3% in the mid to low class.

BTC’s price moving sideways on the 4-hour chart. Source: BTCUSDT Tradingview

Crypto Investors In Spain, Where Are They Located

Moreover, the survey discovered that the majority of investors record over 3,000 euros in monthly income (41%) while 18.3% record between 2,000 to 3,000 euros in monthly income.

These results suggest that most people investing in Spain are either wealthy or have income very well above minimum wages. Crypto investors are spread out across the territory, but most seem to be located in the country’s capital Madrid, and in Catalonia, an important state with Barcelona as its main city, as seen below.

The map shows how crypto investors are spread out across Spain’s territory. Source: Spain’s National Securities Market Commission

Most respondents said that they have invested in cryptocurrencies because they offer high returns (36.5%), while others said that they believe in the underlying technology (29%). A large proportion (34%) of the survey participants are using digital because they believe that they are the payment method of the future.

The survey concluded the following on the unique profile of crypto investors and how they tend to conduct their own research, and seek information directly from the source of the asset/project they are interested in:

Unlike the general population where investors turn to their advisor, cryptocurrency investors seek more autonomously information about potential investments, mainly through the information documents of the product they are interested in, specialized press and online forums.