From Bondi to Burnie: The wealthy Aussie suburbs leading the crypto-trading boom

Sydney’s western suburbs are at the forefront of Australia’s crypto-trading landscape, according to new data from Aussie cryptocurrency exchange Independent Reserve.

The data, based on analysis of activity on the exchange between January 2018 and July 2019, lists the top 10 suburbs for trading activity.

All of the top 10 are in New South Wales and Victoria, and all are within relative proximity to the metropolises of Sydney and Melbourne. The suburb of Melbourne itself is fourth on the list, while Sydney is sixth.

There is also, predictably, a trend towards high-income areas with a high population of young, wealthy professionals. Four of the top 10 were in Sydney’s western suburbs.

The data includes trades from the exchange’s 100,000 users, including both individual investors and professional crypto-trading businesses.

Independent Reserve founder and chief Adrian Przelozny tells StartupSmart that, while volumes of trades have dropped since early-2018, “at which point it was a frenzied rush”, numbers of investors are starting to climb again.

“We get the sense that this time around the investors are more considered, as we see more self-managed super funds, trusts and institutions coming into the space.

“These investors are making large purchases,” he explains.

Individual, or retail, investors still account for a large proportion of activity, although they’re also being a bit more cautious.

“We’ve also seen a lot more retail investors deploying the tactic of dollar-cost averaging when moving into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a way to reduce the volatility of their investment over time,” Przelozny says.

In a statement, Przelozny suggested the prevalence of western Sydney suburbs in the trading activity — additional suburbs in the area also show up in the top 20 — shows that “migrants and early adopters” still make up a lot of the community.

“This is a good thing. With much concern over the current health of the global economy, savvy investors would traditionally turn to gold to hedge against losses and provide a store of value.

“For the first time, a sizeable group of ordinary people will have an asset outside of super that might help them do the same during a potential difficult economic period.”

Weirdly, Wednesday emerged as the most popular day for trading, with 17% of all trades occurring on hump day.

Tuesdays and Thursdays were also popular trading days for users of the exchange, but “most take a break over the weekend like the rest of us”, Przelozny noted.

The data also shows women are increasingly investing in cryptocurrency, although the figure has only increased from 16% of total traders in 2018 to about 20% now.

The top crypto suburbs

1. Darlinghurst, NSW
2. Westmead, NSW
3. Bondi, NSW
4. Melbourne, VIC
5. Cocoroc, VIC
6. Sydney, NSW
7. Hoppers Crossing, VIC
8. Baulkham Hills, NSW
9. Crows Nest, NSW
10. Liverpool, NSW

Breaking the data down by state, New South Wales is way ahead. The state saw a total of $822 million traded in the past 12-month period, compared to the second-most active state, Victoria, which saw $477 million.

The vast majority of crypto trading is going on in and around the most populous cities. In New South Wales, all of the activity is in the urban area surrounding Sydney.

The same is true for Victoria and Melbourne, with the exception of the coastal town of Cannon’s Creek, which, despite its population of fewer than 1,000, is the ninth-most active suburb for crypto trading in Australia.

Queensland is the third-most active state in terms of trade value, recording trades valued at $342 million.

Up north, the top 10 hotspots were a tad more distributed, mostly centred around the urban areas of Brisbane and Gold Coast, but with Cairns, the Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba also making an appearance.

Western Australia saw $163 million traded, with all the activity in and around Perth. This was almost twice the value traded in South Australia, which recorded trades totalling $84 million. Again, all of this activity was in Adelaide.

The Australian Capital Territory saw trades totalling $37 million, and Northern Territory’s trading totalled $5 million, however, a suburb breakdown was not available.

And finally, in Tasmania, while the majority of activity was in Hobart, the second-most active suburb was Launceston, and the town of Burnie was 10th on the list.

Tasmania’s total trades were valued at $18 million, and while there is no data available as to how many trades, or traders, were recorded in Burnie, it’s safe to assume it may not be catching up with Darlinghurst anytime soon.

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