A College of Queensland-led examine has discovered shopper vulnerability to cryptocurrency funding scams has little to do with socioeconomic standing.

Affiliate Professor Levon Blue in UQ’s Workplace of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Engagement and affiliated with the College of Schooling mentioned the most important vulnerabilities for customers have been considerations over safety, unsolicited recommendation, restricted choices for studying and an absence of monetary and IT literacy.

The findings are revealed within the Australian Journal of Social Points.

“Cryptocurrency investment scams cost Australians a reported $171 million last year alone, and that figure is only set to grow as more people embrace new forms of digital finance products and services,” Dr. Blue mentioned.

“We surveyed 745 Australian adults who’d bought cryptocurrencies or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and located each socioeconomic advantaged and deprived folks have been susceptible to funding scams.

“The number one place people learned about cryptocurrency was social media.”

The researchers discovered two distinct teams have been susceptible to dropping funds to scams.

“The first were more likely to be female, Indigenous, casual or part-time workers, renters, a high school or below education or with English as a second language—so with a lot of features we associate with socioeconomic disadvantage,” Dr. Blue mentioned.

“They reported being influenced by social media hype to purchase crypto and lacked adequate monetary or IT literacy.

“In distinction, the opposite susceptible group might be seen as having extra socioeconomic benefit equivalent to a college schooling, full-time work, being non-Indigenous or proudly owning their house or paying off a mortgage.

“This second group were more financially literate but may have assumed they wouldn’t become a scam victim and been over-confident or over-ambitious, exposing themselves to risk.”

Dr. Blue mentioned different areas of vulnerability for crypto scams included receiving unsolicited recommendation and never understanding how to retailer or safe crypto, or calculate tax or curiosity on the funding.

“Our findings suggest that online financial education from trusted independent sources is urgently needed to help combat scams and to keep Australians and their crypto assets safe,” Dr. Blue mentioned.

“We recommend that education about alternative forms of financial products is offered to in schools, vocational settings and university.”