|| This seminar is open ONLY to EUI members ||

Join us for the next event of the 'Finance in the Tuscan Hills' seminar series, where we host Marco Di Maggio, Full Professor of Finance at Imperial College Business School and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). 

The paper underlying this seminar provides an initial examination of the drivers of household cryptocurrency investment. Drawing on consumer transaction data from millions of U.S. households, the analysis shows that, with the exception of high-income early adopters, cryptocurrency investors broadly resemble the general population. These investors span all income levels, with most dollars coming from high-income individuals, similar to equity investors.  Increases in cryptocurrency investment are associated with high past returns and individual income shocks. Additionally, higher household-level inflation expectations are positively correlated with greater investment in cryptocurrencies, suggesting a potential hedging motive. Overall, for most U.S. households, cryptocurrencies are treated in a manner comparable to traditional financial assets.

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Marco Di Maggio is a Full Professor of Finance at Imperial College Business School and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT and previously served on the faculty at Harvard Business School.

His research lies at the intersection of household finance, financial intermediation, and the rapidly evolving fields of fintech and digital assets. A central theme of his work is the impact of financial innovation—ranging from algorithmic trading to decentralised protocols—on how households access financial markets, manage risk, and allocate wealth.

Recent research focuses on cryptocurrency adoption, including the paper Who Invests in Crypto? (currently under review at the Review of Financial Studies), which explores the demographic and behavioural patterns underlying retail participation in digital asset markets. Complementing this, another strand of his work examines the regulatory economics of payment systems, with particular attention to interchange fee regulation and its implications for consumer welfare.

More broadly, his research portfolio spans topics such as unconventional monetary policy transmission, mortgage markets, and the role of financial advisors. This work has been published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Financial Economics, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies. Across these contributions, his scholarship combines detailed institutional insight with rigorous empirical methods, frequently drawing on natural experiments and novel datasets to address questions of significant policy relevance.

In addition to his academic research, he is the author of a textbook on blockchain and decentralised finance published by Wiley (2024), with a second book forthcoming from MIT Press. At Imperial College, he teaches MSc-level courses on blockchain, digital assets, and decentralised finance (DeFi).

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The FBF seminar series ‘Finance in the Tuscan Hills’ focuses on financial sector issues and aims to bring together researchers from across the EUI community, who share an interest in these subjects.