Billy Markus, who created the original meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin in collaboration with Jackson Palmer in 2013, has taken to his account on the X platform to criticize a study made on cryptocurrency holders recently and then reported by the Independent.

This study claims that those who invest in cryptocurrency assets are inclined to have “dark traits” of personality, the “dark tetrad” in particular. The Dogecoin founder said he strongly disagrees with that opinion: “i disagree and let me lengthily argue why i am right.”

DOGE creator slams study discriminating crypto investors

The Independent article speaks about a study made on 2,001 adults living in the USA who were asked whether they own any cryptocurrency on not. Approximately 30% of these adults admitted to owning crypto.

Along with the question about owning crypto, the researchers also collected some other information about them, including their psychological, political and other traits of personality. Based on that data, the researchers tried to decide on characteristics that could best predict whether someone had bought cryptocurrency assets.

This study suggested that crypto owners from these respondents are likely to have “dark tetrad” personality traits. In particular, they rely on “fringe social media sources,” “believe in conspiracy theories” and “feel victimized.” They summarized it as traits aligned with “the dark tetrad,” i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy and sadism.

However, the Independent claims that the strongest predictor of whether a person owns crypto proved to be whether they rely on “fringe social media sources” to find out the latest news.

Feeble attempt to dishonor Elon Musk's X?

The point about “relying on fringe social media sources for news” seems to be particularly interesting here. The thing is that after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter for $44 billion and rebranding it as X, this social media platform has been fighting for its users’ right to defend free speech on X.

Data shared by Elon Musk recently shows that X has been rapidly gaining new users and becoming a more reliable source of news compared to conventional media (with the latter sharply losing traffic compared to X). Taking into account that X is also a platform very popular with the crypto community, the above-mentioned article and the study on which it is based looks like an attempt to discriminate X and crypto simultaneously in the eyes of American public.