Crypto currency behavior in developing countries from the perspective of behavioral finance: The case of Turkey

The advancement of internet technologies initiates the transformation of individual consumption and investment behaviors. Among the developments in the field of finance emerging simultaneously with the digital transformation are the cryptocurrencies and Blockchain system. As the global transaction volume rises immensely, a new financial system starts to emerge. The fact that such developments have been welcomed with enthusiasm, especially in developing countries, provides an opportunity for research into the investors' behavioral biases in these countries. It is clear that there is a rapidly growing interest in cryptocurrencies in Turkey. The purpose of this study is to describe the underlying biases of the cryptocurrency investment behavior in Turkey, which is a developing country, from the perspective of behavioral finance. Therefore, a survey has been conducted on 240 cryptocurrency investors in Turkey, who were selected based on the purposeful sampling method, and the literature studies on the cryptocurrency behavior in the developing countries have been included within the scope of this study. Analyzed via SPSS software, the data has been evaluated by performing an unpaired t-test and one way ANOVA test. It is found that, in terms of behavioral finance, the cryptocurrency investor biases show a meaningful variation based on gender. However, it is concluded that no remarkable variation has been found in the cryptocurrency investor biases, as defined by behavioral finance, in terms of civil status, age, level of education or income, duration of investment in the cryptocurrencies, and frequency of monitoring the cryptocurrency markets. Keywords: behavioral finance, cyrptocurrency, blockchain