Abstract
With the massive growth of cryptocurrency markets in recent years has come an influx of new users and investors, pushing the overall number of owners into the millions. At the same time, the number of distinct cryptocurrencies has exploded to over 4,900. In this burgeoning and chaotic “cryptojungle,” new and unexplored incentives and risks drive the behavior of users and non-users of cryptocurrencies. While previous research has focused almost exclusively on Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies and utility tokens have been ignored. This paper presents findings from an interview study of cryptocurrency users and non-users \((N=20)\). We specifically focus on their perceptions and management of cryptocurrency risks as well as their reasons for or against involvement with cryptocurrencies. Our results suggest that associated risks and mitigation strategies (among other factors) might be specific to a particular crypto-asset and its application area. Further, we identify misunderstandings of both users and non-users that might lead to skewed risk perceptions or dangerous errors. Lastly, we discuss ways of aiding users with managing risks, as well as design implications for coin management tools.
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Notes
- 1.
We use the prefix “PU” when referring to those participants who used crypto-assets at the time of the interview.
- 2.
We use the prefix “PN” to refer to those participants who did not use crypto-assets at the time of the interview.
- 3.
A pejorative term for crypto-assets that have no intrinsic value.
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Acknowledgements
This research has been supported in part by a gift from Scotiabank to UBC and by an NSERC Engage Grant (with Symetria), #EGP538930-19. We would like to thank members of the Laboratory for Education and Research in Secure Systems Engineering (LERSSE), who provided their feedback on the reported research and earlier versions of the paper. We thank our anonymous reviewers for all the feedback and suggestions they provided to improve the paper.
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Appendices
Appendices
A Interview Questions
Interview guides for both users and non-users of cryptocurrencies follow. Research questions that were addressed are in bold.
1.1 A.1 Users of Cryptocurrencies
RQ1: What are the current usages of cryptocurrencies?
Q1. Please tell me about how you got into cryptocurrencies.
Q2. How much money have you spent?
Q3. What do you use cryptocurrencies for?
Q3.1 How many transactions do you perform?
Q4. How has this usage changed over time? If it did, why?
Q5. How many different currencies do you own?
Q5.1 What three currencies have you invested the most money in? Why?
Q5.2 Do you use these currencies for different use cases? Why?
Q6. What factors influence you when making a decision to invest in a currency?
Q6.1 How well do you research the currency prior to an investment?
Q6.2 How knowledgeable are you about currencies that you have invested in?
Q6.3 Can you explain the concept behind blockchain to me?
RQ2: How do holders manage their cryptocurrency?
Q.7 How do you store your cryptocurrencies?
Q7.1 Please name the wallets you personally use the most.
Q7.2 Why did you choose these wallets?
Q7.3 How many different wallets do you use?
Q7.4 For how many of these wallets do you own the private key?
Q7.5 Can you explain to me what a private key is?
Q7.6 What do you need the private key for?
Q7.8 How is a private key different from a public key?
Q7.9 Do you store different currencies in different wallets?
RQ3: What is the perception of cryptocurrency-related security risk?
Q8 Have you ever lost cryptocurrency?
Q8.1 How much money did you lose?
Q8.2 Were you able to recover the key(s)?
Q9 What risks are you personally aware of when it comes to cryptocurrencies?
Q9.1 What is the most severe one according to you? Why?
Q10 What measures do you use to mitigate those risks? (RQ4)
Q10.1 What measures worked and which ones did not? Why?
Q11. In what ways do you protect different cryptocurrencies? (RQ5)
Q11.1 What factors influence your decisions?
1.2 A.2 Non-Users of Cryptocurrencies
RQ1: What are the current usages of cryptocurrencies?
Q1. What payment systems do you use in your daily life?
Q2. How did you hear about cryptocurrencies for the first time?
Q3. What cryptocurrencies have you heard of?
Q4. How do you view your understanding of cryptocurrencies?
Q4.1 And of the underlying technological background?
Q5. What do you think cryptocurrencies are used for?
Q6. Why do you believe people purchase cryptocurrencies?
Q7. Why did you choose not to purchase cryptocurrencies?
Q7.1 What would have to happen for you to reconsider?
RQ3: What is the perception of cryptocurrency-related security risk?
Q8. What risks come with the usage of cryptocurrencies?
Q8.1 What is the most severe one? Why?
Q9. Can you think of ways users can protect themselves? (RQ4)
B Participant Demographics
The following two tables display the participants’ demographics. The number of owned crypto-assets was self-reported and the ownership was not validated (Tables 1 and 2).
C Schematic Overview of the Results
The following figure depicts the findings of the interview study. Based on our research questions we created five groups, use cases, reasons against an involvement, perceived risks, reasons for losses, and risk management. We use distinct colors for users and non-users and show relationships where appropriate (Fig. 1).
Findings overview
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Voskobojnikov, A., Obada-Obieh, B., Huang, Y., Beznosov, K. (2020). Surviving the Cryptojungle: Perception and Management of Risk Among North American Cryptocurrency (Non)Users. In: Bonneau, J., Heninger, N. (eds) Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12059. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51280-4_32
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