Today Paxos, the regulated blockchain and tokenization firm, published the results of its U.S. consumer survey around cryptocurrency attitudes, which it ran in January. It found that 75% of people were likely to buy cryptocurrencies from banks if they were offered. That’s 12 percentage points up on last year.
In the meantime, regulators continue to discourage banks from engaging in the crypto sector, especially after crypto bank Silvergate ran into trouble.
Paxos also noted that two of the top three platforms used by its 5,000 survey respondents were non-crypto companies, PayPal (31%) and Robinhood (26%). Presumably, the third member of the group is Coinbase. To qualify for the survey, the respondents had to have purchased cryptocurrency in the past three years.
Regarding motivations for buying crypto, holding as a long term investment ranked highest at 52%, with day trading at 36%. However, mainstream use cases scored well, such as using crypto for payment (42%), receiving crypto for loyalty (38%) and sending money to friends and family (34%).
Overall, the survey found considerable confidence (75%) despite the crypto crash and collapse of FTX. A similar figure (72%) said they were not worried or only a little worried by the volatility experienced by the market.
Meanwhile, a recent Bank of America survey of wealthy investors found a big change in attitudes depending on age. Those 43 or older ranked domestic equities as their favored growth opportunity. But that category didn’t rank in the top five for the under 43’s. Crypto and digital assets came first.
Paxos, stablecoins and tokenization
Paxos Trust is an NYDFS-regulated trust bank. Last month the NYDFS instructed it to stop issuing the Binance USD stablecoin. The NYDFS attributed it to “Paxos’ oversight of its relationship with Binance.” As we previously reported, while Paxos issued the stablecoin on Ethereum, Binance issued pegged coins on other blockchains.
Paxos is one of the more conservative operators and has previously worked with banks to offer equity settlement services as part of a trial. It provides crypto brokerage services to PayPal and is the service provider for EDXM, a new institutional crypto exchange backed by Citadel Securities, Fidelity and Schwab.
