Steve Hanke Calls Crypto Owners Psychopaths, Citing New Research

Prominent U.S. economist and professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore Steve H. Hanke has taken a jab at cryptocurrency holders, aiming at their levels of analytic and scientific thinking compared to the general population.

The economist and prominent cryptocurrency critic cited recently published Canadian research as he called crypto investors psychopaths.

Crypto owners are psychopaths, research finds; Hanke agrees

While publicly agreeing with the “diagnosis” made by researchers, Hanke published a link that leads to the results of the research by the University of Toronto.

Hanke gave a short summary of their conclusion: “Crypto holders display lower levels of analytic and scientific thinking and are likelier to exhibit psychopathy than the general population.”

The report begins with a definition of cryptocurrency - “a digital asset secured by cryptography that has become a popular medium of exchange and investment known for its anonymous transactions, unregulated markets, and volatile prices.” Considering the quickly expanding popularity of crypto assets and the “popular subculture of traders,” as well as “its implications for financial markets and monetary policy,” scholars decided to begin studying the political, psychological and social characteristics of those people who invest in cryptocurrencies and hold them for a long period of time.

The scientists polled more than 2,000 American adults two years ago to see if there are any associations between holding crypto and their “individual level political, psychological, and social characteristics.”

They revealed that cryptocurrency holders are more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories, and they possess “dark” personality characteristics, also known as the “Dark Tetrad”: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy and sadism.

Dogecoin founder stands against this research

In early July, one of the two founders of the popular meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin, Billy Markus (known as Shibetoshi Nakamoto on the X platform) also cited an article published by Independent that covered the aforementioned research. Markus strongly criticized that research.

Aside from the above-mentioned “Dark Tetrad” of crypto investors' character, Markus pointed out that the report also says crypto holders do not trust legacy media and prefer alternative news platforms, relying “on fringe social media sources for news.” That, according to Independent, is the strongest predictor as to whether a person holds cryptocurrencies or not.