A new survey commissioned by financial services giant Charles Schwab shows that American investors are very keen on investing in cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with about 45% of respondents indicating plans to invest in cryptocurrencies through ETFs in the next year.
This percentage is higher than the 38% from a year ago and exceeds the demand for bonds/fixed income and alternative assets. Only the demand for U.S. stocks is higher, with 55% of respondents planning to invest. Notably, among these four asset classes, only the proportion for cryptocurrencies is increasing.
However, among Millennial ETF investors, cryptocurrencies are the most popular asset class, with 62% of respondents indicating plans to invest in cryptocurrency ETFs next year, while U.S. stocks, bonds, and physical assets (such as commodities) ETFs have only 48%, 47%, and 46% respectively.
Baby Boomer ETF investors show much less interest in digital assets, with only 15% of respondents planning to invest in such ETFs.
Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas expressed being "quite shocked" at the high ranking of cryptocurrencies in investment plans from the survey.
The survey targeted 2,200 individual investors aged 25 to 75, each with at least $25,000 invested, and its implications could serve as an incentive for the emerging and growing cryptocurrency ETF category, which is being promoted as a diversification tool for traditional stock and bond portfolios.
According to SoSoValue data, U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs have attracted about $18.5 billion in net inflows since their launch in January this year, but Ethereum spot ETFs have performed poorly since their launch in late July, showing a net outflow of $558 million on both a relative and absolute basis.