According to a recent report from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a majority of retail Bitcoin investors have incurred losses in the past seven years.
As per the report’s authors, the average retail investor has lost roughly half of their investments since August 2015 until December 2022, and even the significant increase in cryptocurrency rates from 2015 to 2021 did not contribute to positive changes. The investors from emerging economies were hit the hardest.
The BIS analysts examined bitcoin investment activity in 95 countries, noting an increase in trading volumes in the first cryptocurrency’s market in 2022. This growth can be attributed to large investors selling bitcoins and retail traders actively buying, despite the collapse of large exchanges and projects such as Terra and FTX.
Marion Laboure, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, suggested that BTC could potentially become the digital gold of the 20th century. Still, she warned investors to remember the risks associated with the first cryptocurrency.
Open interest in bitcoin futures on the Chicago Exchange (CME) rose by 6% in 2023, according to Arcane Research, while Ether futures fell by 29% earlier in February.