About half of America’s crypto-buying crowd turn to celebrities such as Kim Kardashian for investment inspiration. That is, if you put much stock in the results of a new survey.

Global data intelligence firm Morning Consult gathered information from 2,200 US adults to create its new survey, titled: Kim Kardashian, Cryptocurrency and Celebrity Clout.

Kim Kardashian West (if we’re using her full name) has a whopping 255 million followers on Instagram. That’s more people than Pakistan – the world’s fifth most populated nation.

 

Some of the survey’s key takeaways: 

• One in five US adults heard about Kardashian’s Instagram posts spruiking crypto EthereumMax (NOT to be confused with ETH) in late May/early June.

• That data was gathered in the days following Kardashian’s post, and the share was higher among crypto owners, at 31 per cent.

• Crypto owners are more likely to seek investing tips on social media and brokerage or trading apps than general investors.

• Somewhat disturbingly, as much as 45 per cent of crypto owners would likely invest in a crypto if a celebrity endorsed it.

• But don’t turn away in disgust, financial advisors – 81 per cent of crypto owners would still rather listen to you on crypto. (If that were an option, of course.)

Morning Consult’s financial services analyst Charlotte Principato gave further insights about the survey’s data in relation to the Kardashian endorsement:

“Kim Kardashian’s Instagram post encouraging followers to join the EthereumMax community, besides having a reach that would make most financial advisors drool, serves as the latest reminder that cryptocurrency’s audience is radically different from what financial services leaders are used to serving.”

Principato did, however, make the point that celebrity endorsements aren’t necessarily good for crypto more generally – “at least not from Kardashian”.

“After being told in the survey that the reality star endorsed EthereumMax, trust in cryptocurrencies in general dropped roughly 5 points,” she added.

Here’s how the EMAX price action has played out since Kardashian first shared an ad featuring the EthereumMax domain address back in late May.

Source: CoinGecko

Earlier this month, a prominent UK regulator, the Chair of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Charles Randell, issued a warning about the risks associated with buying crypto assets promoted by celebrity social media influencers.

Citing the Kardashian EMAX example, Randell commented:

“Of course, I can’t say whether this particular token is a scam. But social media influencers are routinely paid by scammers to help them pump and dump new tokens on the back of pure speculation. Some influencers promote coins that turn out simply not to exist at all.”

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