Public Perception of Virtual Assets and Tokenized Money

2 Executive Summary 5. Online purchases remain the most common way to acquire virtual assets, although they have become less popular over time. Online purchases have shown an overall decrease of 7.32 percentage points between the first survey (73.52%) and the latest survey (66.20%), while alternative acquisition methods such as receiving virtual assets as payment for goods or services and purchasing them at a dedicated kiosk have increased by 4.66 and 2.10 percentage points, respectively. 6. There is a notable shift in preferences from using software wallets to traditional brokerages to hold virtual assets among future holders . Although in the latest survey, software wallets were preferred by almost 3% more respondents than traditional brokerages, there is a growing inclination in traditional brokerages, as supported by an increase of 5.51 percentage points versus a significant decrease of 8.99 percentage points for software wallets between the second and third surveys. Overall, crypto exchanges remain the most popular place to hold virtual assets, with the majority of respondents across all three surveys favoring them. Tokenized Money: Low Public Awareness, Confidence from High Security, Data Privacy Protection, and Regulation Part II of the survey aimed to assess respondents’ awareness and perceptions of tokenized money, focusing on three key areas: awareness of different types of tokenized money, views on regulations, and opinions on using tokenized money. Below are the key insights derived from the survey results: 1. Awareness of tokenized money among the adult population in Hong Kong is low, with a significant majority of respondents having never heard of its different types. Specifically, 71.72% of respondents have never heard of CBDC, 65.48% have never heard of e-HKD, 60.82% have never heard of stablecoins, and 80.78% have never heard of tokenized deposits. 2. About 34% of the respondents agreed that the private sector should be allowed to issue stablecoins or tokenized deposits under proper regulation and legislation, while about 24% disagreed. 3. Confidence among respondents in using exchanges increased significantly when exchanges were regulated. Respondents expressed mixed feelings about the reliability and safety of using exchanges for virtual asset transactions and as custodians of tokens, with almost 35% expressing distrust and less than 30% feeling confident. However, about 20% more respondents indicated they would feel safe putting money into regulated exchanges.