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Retail Insights with the World Gold Council, a popular survey that conducts global and regional level surveys on retail investment released a new research report about Russia’s retail investment scenario.
As per the new research conducted, Russian markets have pointed towards the existence of investments in cryptocurrencies. In fact, out of its investments, it has also marked crypto among the lot which features fifth in the list of its most popular investments. The investment decisions ranked in order of preference include savings account, foreign currencies, real estate, life insurance, and finally crypto. Online investments have ruled the charts for Russia this time, majorly could be due to the pandemic but cryptocurrencies have led the way with about 80% of the cryptos bought exclusively online.
The research presenting the retail insights was an effort by the World Gold Council which exclusively laid the fine print of retail gold insights in Russia. A total of 2,223 investors in Russia were a part of the survey who made at least one new investment in 12 months before the survey.
But by observing the investment preferences, we can see that Russian investors like to play safe and preserve a portion of their savings for a rainy day considering they ranked savings accounts first in the ranking. This could mean that they are conservative investors but what is surprising that they also have streaks of risk-taking and speculative investment targets. Having cryptocurrency in the presence list is the biggest indicator of it. So there are two sides to the same coin, on one side the safe investors have ranked Savings account as their preferred investment destination, while on the other crypto. This could also mean that they want to take a plunge but also require some safe investment haven to fall back on just in case.
The online mode of conducting investments seems to have caught up with Russians. To be more specifically related to age, investors in the age between 18 and 24 years were seen to be willing to take risks in order to witness growth in their portfolio. But online investments either through a web application or a mobile one seems to be the mantra even for other regions, a trend imposed by Covid-19 lockdowns.
Source: World Gold Council
Around 65% of the Russian youth believes that investing in cryptocurrencies compared to a long-term investment tool like a savings account is a much better deal. Bitcoin is considered a popular crypto in Russia and is regarded as an accessible investment tool.
The research highlighted that gold-backed ETFs were considered as a strong competitor against crypto. Stocks, commodity funds, and investment funds also were in strong competition with Cryptocurrencies. It suggested that for the gold industry to expand its base, it could probably use the fintech route. This will give it more identity and the ability to take on cryptocurrencies.
In terms of global crypto adoption, Russia ranks second as per Chainalysis. But as per the Russian regulations on crypto-trading and mining it has clearly stated that it will not allow crypto used as a medium of payment.