• Most individuals believe crypto is a good investment
• People are attracted to new technology
• Lack of trust in authorities turned people to crypto

The cryptocurrency market’s popularity rose exponentially in the last decade or so. The difference is stunning if one looks at the market capitalization of the entire industry today and compares it with, say, ten years ago.

So, knowing what drives people to invest in cryptocurrencies is interesting.

Guess no more.

A study by the Federal Reserve, called Federal Reserve’s 2022 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, sheds light on this topic. So here are the main three reasons why investors hold crypto:

• Great potential investment
• People are interested in new technologies
• Some do not trust the US government or the US dollar

Most individuals own crypto as an investment

The overwhelming majority of individual investors own cryptocurrencies because they believe it is a good investment. More precisely, 67% of investors are crypto owners only from an investment perspective.

While this is impressive, it also tells much of the industry. It means that most investors are just speculating and hoping for higher prices than the ones they paid.

Coupled with the fact that only 0.3% of the respondents said they use it to buy goods and services in the United States, it tells much about the main reason people invest in cryptocurrencies.

Many own crypto because they are interested in new technologies

Another reason to own crypto is that investors want to have exposure to new technologies. 20.7% of investors are interested in new technologies, which is a good enough reason for them to buy and hold cryptocurrencies.

Lack of trust in the US government or the US dollar

1.6% of investors do not trust the US government or the US dollar. While not a big number, it reflects investors’ belief that the US government’s policies failed to support the local currency, and thus, investors turned to cryptocurrencies.

The rest of the respondents fell into other categories, which sum up to 8.6%.

The Kleiman vs Wright lawsuit has taken another bizarre turn after three years of the undecided court battle. David Kleiman is the former business partner of Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin. The court battle is for $64 billion worth of Bitcoin stored in a wallet belonging to pseudo-anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright claims to be the sole creator and therefore the owner of the wallet while the Kleiman family claims it was co-created by both the business partner.

Kleiman family lawyer Vel Freedman in a recent interview with Wall Street Journal claimed that they are in possession of physical evidence that would prove Bitcoin was co-created by two individuals. He revealed that Kleiman always carried a military-grade thumbnail that could contain key information regarding the case, indicating the Klieman council could offer the thumbnail as evidence. He said,

“We believe the evidence will show there was a partnership to create and mine over one million Bitcoin,”

Craig Wright has long been known as “Faketoshi” for his obsession to prove he is the real creator of Bitcoin. The crypto community believes all he has to do is sign the original wallet with the private key, but Wright has always bailed out with some excuse or failed to do the simple task. Even at the start of this lawsuit, Wright claimed he would produce the private key soon, but that also turned out to be a time-wasting stunt.

Will Bitcoin Price Be Affected?

The crypto community believes neither of the two parties is the original creator of Bitcoin mainly because of their desperation to claim the multi-billion dollar Bitcoin wallet. The original creator did mine one million Bitcoin at the start but never touched it till today and it has become the center of the 3-year ongoing court battle.

Bitcoin price is currently trading above $65K with a bullish outlook, especially after the much-awaited Taproot integration. As for the ongoing court battle and bold claims of new evidence, it won’t be for the first time when the case has seen much speculation but eventually it turns out to be otherwise. Thus it won’t have much of an impact on BTC price given the top cryptocurrency has matured as an asset over the past three years.