Only 14% of 835 institutional traders polled by JPMorgan indicated they would continue to trade cryptocurrency in 2023 or had intentions to do so this year.
According to a new JPMorgan poll, 72% of institutional e-traders have indicated “no intentions to trade crypto/digital currencies” in 2023.
JPMorgan’s e-Trading Edit, in its seventh edition, polled 835 traders from 60 different countries on the technical advances and macroeconomic issues that would impact trading success in 2023.
The poll found traders to be hesitant about digital assets. Only 14% of respondents stated they would continue to trade digital assets or start trading this year.
The remaining 14% stated they do not intend to invest this year but may do so during the following five years.
Most institutional traders polled by JPMorgan — 92% — claimed they had no exposure to the digital asset market in their investment portfolio at the time of the study, which took place from January 3 to January 23.
This might be because over half of the respondents mentioned turbulent markets as the most challenging hurdle to do successfully daily.
The United States Federal Reserve’s quantitative tightening measures enacted in 2022 may have also played a role, with 22% citing liquidity availability worries as the most prominent factor hindering trade performance.
The poll findings came only months after investor and trader sentiment in the cryptocurrency sector plummeted after the catastrophic failures of the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem and trading platform FTX in 2022.
Another JPMorgan Chase poll found that 30% of respondents feel recession risk is the most critical macroeconomic element to watch for. In comparison, 26% say inflation will have the most significant effect on trade results.
It should be emphasized that trading often refers to hopping in and out of stocks or assets within weeks, days, or even minutes to benefit in the short term, whereas investors have a longer-term perspective.
An institutional investor study conducted by crypto exchange Coinbase last year discovered that 62% of institutional investors had invested in the digital asset market between November 2021 and late 2022, seemingly unaffected by the long crypto winter.
More recent research published in June discovered that 71% of high-net-worth people have already invested in cryptocurrencies, with many choosing longer-term plans rather than day-to-day trading.
In another study, 12% of traders viewed blockchain technology as the most powerful technology to determine the future of trading, compared to 53% for artificial intelligence and machine learning-related technologies.
These statistics contrast sharply with the 2022 survey, in which blockchain technology and AI earned 25% of all votes.
