Investor Behavior in the cryptocurrency market : A quantitative study investigating individual investors’ adoption intention to Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency market

Sammanfattning: Background: The emerging cryptocurrency market becomes more and more recognized around the globe. Therefore, it has become of great interest to policymakers, institutional investors, and individual investors. The new encrypted blockchain technology offers individual investors contemporary opportunities to invest contrary to traditional means. However, the volatile market presents instabilities and uncertainty for market participants creating a research gap for academics to investigate what poses these difficulties.  Purpose: The objective of the study is to investigate the determinants that affect individual investors' adoption intention of Bitcoin. By incorporating theories to understand investment behaviors and attitudes.  Methodology: The thesis utilized a quantitative methodology and collected data through an online questionnaire with the help of a Likert-scale instrument. The survey participants ended with a number of 114 respondents that are characterized as young adult investors. Interpretation and evaluation of the results were analyzed through an OLS linear regression with the help of a software program, Minitab.  Findings: Theresearchquestionwasansweredtoasatisfactorylevel,whereresultsattested to past works of literatures. The study found that consumer characteristic is a driving cause for individual investors' adoption intention of Bitcoin. To elaborate, subjective norms of individuals navigate their attitude towards Bitcoin, and investors’ peers’ opinions and acceptance play a crucial role in their engagement in the market. The herding trend was the most significant variable that contributed to investors’ adoption intention. The results also showed a significant correlation toward the technology acceptance model. Nonetheless, the study lacked empirical evidence to support market characteristics steering private investors’ adoption intention.  Implications & Future Research suggestions: The main implications of the study were factors that regarded data collection and methods. Due to a time limitation, the survey was not available for a longer period of time, a longitudinal study could be of interest whilst incorporating more consumer characteristics into the analysis. In addition, future scholars ought to focus on market characteristics and how they influence varying cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Tether alongside Bitcoin. To conclude, a larger scope of the study could bring about more significant results and interesting findings.