Cryptocurrency addiction is a type of addiction similar to gambling addiction or an addiction that traditional stock or options traders may experience, but as it applies to the trading of cryptocurrencies. This addiction is based in the luring potential for high gains, much lime gambling addiction. This can cause a an individual a lack of sleep, a neglect for the themselves or those around them, and a constant search for the rush of dopamine. Often this can result in an individual's social life shrinking. While this style of addiction can happen in traditional stock trading, the increased regularity in traditional markets and the "gambling-like" search for the next profitable cryptocurrency has some believing this to be a new, specific type of addiction.
In clinical terms, a cryptocurrency addiction is considered by some to be a pathological obsession and compulsion, which may include a preoccupation with price action, cryptocurrency news, and related engagements or "research." Often the addiction is considered to offer an individual euphoric highs and devastating lows, following a cyclothymic pattern of emotional ups and downs.
The awareness of cryptocurrency addiction has come from recovering traders who have entered cognitive-behavioral therapies and twelve-step programs similar to those used in other addiction-treatment programs. Therapists in these programs would then address the emotions driving the addiction and work through secondary issues, such as depression or substance abuse. Similarly, some psychotherapists have cautioned that the 24-hour nature of cryptocurrency markets and the large volume of social media posts about cryptocurrency trading can offer reinforcement for out-of-control trading habits.
This led one psychotherapist, Peter Klein of London, who has offered cryptocurrency addiction therapy since 2019, to suggest that one telltale sign of addiction is when people invest in lesser-known cryptocurrencies that are more likely to see wild fluctuations in their daily price. Klein has treated clients who have lost massive amounts of money to cryptocurrency trading. Or others, such as one client who used cryptocurrency trading as a form of escape from a difficult marriage, often spending nights trading while abusing cocaine.
Others, such as Ashley Loeb Blassingame, a cofounder of the online Substance Abuse disorder counseling service, suggest that cryptocurrency addiction is closest to gambling addiction. Further suggesting the addiction is a secondary or tertiary addiction or something that comes up when an addict is sober. She has said that often clients in her program use cryptocurrency trading to seek relief—financially, emotionally, spiritually, or politically— and cryptocurrency provides those individuals with something they can believe in and a world they can be part of.
