Crypto cravings: Gender differences in crypto investment intentions and the mediating roles of financial overconfidence and personality

Abstract

Cryptocurrencies have ballooned into a billion-dollar business. To inform regulations aimed at protecting consumers vulnerable to suboptimal financial decisions, we investigate crypto investment intentions as a function of consumer gender, financial overconfidence (greater subjective relative to objective financial knowledge), and the Big Five personality traits. Study 1 (N = 126) found that people believe each Big Five personality trait as well as consumer gender and financial overconfidence to predict consumers' crypto investment intentions. Study 2 (N = 1741) revealed that less than 1 in 10 consumers from a nationally representative sample (Norway) are willing to invest in crypto. However, the proportion of male (vs. female) consumers considering such investments is more than twice as large, with less (vs. more) agreeable and less (vs. more) conscientious, but more (vs. less) open and more (vs. less) financially overconfident consumers also being increasingly inclined to consider crypto investments. Financial overconfidence, agreeableness, and conscientiousness mediate the link between consumer gender and crypto investment intentions. These results hold after accounting for a theoretically relevant confounding factor (financial self-efficacy). Together, this research offers novel implications for marketing theory and practice that help understand the observed gender differences in consumers' crypto investments.