Sparked by grant awards by Analytics at Wharton and the Mack Institute for Innovation Management, the Wharton Marketing Department has recently developed the first index specifically designed to capture consumers’ perceptions of and comfort with the cryptocurrency market. The measure, called the “Consumer Cryptocurrency Confidence Index,” or Wharton c3i, was launched in January 2023, and since then is collected every month.

The initiative, led by Wharton Professors Dave Reibstein, John Zhang, Cait Lamberton and Visiting Professor Martin Paul Fritze of the Zeppelin University (Germany), saw the c3i as a necessary bridge between existing financial analysis and the lived experiences of consumers that are central in marketing research.  

“There is a great deal of research about the financial markets’ response to cryptocurrency,” notes Reibstein. “We also know a good amount about attitudes of institutional investors, as captured by organizations like Binance Research. However, aside from single-shot surveys, we know very little about how consumers – the people who will ultimately determine whether crypto becomes a commonly-used tool in the market – view cryptocurrency, or how these perceptions change over time.” 

Along with measures of confidence in cryptocurrency, modeled after the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, the survey also captures a range of consumer perceptions and beliefs about crypto. For example, the survey tracks consumers’ thinking about cryptocurrencies compared to other currencies, whether they perceive them as short-term speculations, or whether they see them as longer-term investments. Further, the index tracks consumers’ willingness to use cryptocurrency in various types of marketplace interactions, from payment to donation.

The longitudinal nature of the survey is also intended to help researchers better understand factors that may shift consumers’ confidence in cryptocurrency. Indeed, as major events in the marketplace as a whole unfold, the researchers hope to see whether cryptocurrency confidence may be a leading or lagging indicator of other economic measures. Future collaborations with Analytics at Wharton, Zhang says, may be critical in tapping this aspect of the data.

The team has developed an interactive research website that will offer monthly snapshots of key indicators as they change over time, as well as opportunities for researchers and practitioners to submit queries for consideration in subsequent index administrations. Beyond these baseline results they will release selected reports on specific insights derived from the data collections.  

“Ideally,” Lamberton says, “we are able to create a community that cares not only about crypto as a monetary innovation, but also as a remarkably promising laboratory. Crypto may offer us the opportunity to understand new forms of trust, consumer behaviors that have not previously been examined, and the way that perceptions and uses for a new technology can evolve over time.”