TORONTO - A study by the Ontario Securities Commission suggests that five per cent of Ontarians own what the regulator calls "cryptoassets" such as Bitcoin or Ether.
The online survey conducted in March also showed that men aged 18 to 34 were more likely to report owning a cryptoasset, at 14 per cent.
Most aren't spending huge amounts of money on cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, with half saying they spent less than $1,000 or no money at all to acquire them.
Still, the regulator's survey of more than 2,500 Ontarians suggested that roughly nine per cent of those who held cryptoassets spent more than $10,000 acquiring them.
As well, 1.5 per cent of those surveyed said they have participated in an initial coin offering, in which investors usually buy digital tokens that can be kept, sold or traded.
The study also showed that while Ontarians' awareness of cryptoassets was growing, their knowledge is lacking, with just 34 per cent able to correctly identify true statements about the digital assets when tested.
