Open any social media app in Indonesia and you are likely to run into someone talking about cryptocurrency. A confident voice on YouTube explains why now is the moment to buy Bitcoin. A polished Instagram post shows charts climbing and a lifestyle to match. For a younger generation coming of age alongside digital assets, these voices have become a regular source of financial information. The question is what they actually do to people’s decision to invest.
A team of researchers set out to examine that question, and their findings include a twist. Their work, presented at the ICONBIT 2025 conference, suggests that the anxious urge to not miss out on a hot opportunity, often assumed to push people toward investing, may sometimes hold them back instead.
The question behind the study
The research was led by Bintang Mahendrata and colleagues in the Digital Business Study Program at Surabaya State University in Indonesia. They were interested in a gap they saw in existing research. Cryptocurrency adoption has grown quickly, but the social and psychological forces shaping who decides to invest have received less attention.
The team focused on three possible influences. The first was social media influencers, meaning the personalities and accounts that produce crypto content. The second was Bitcoin literacy, which the researchers defined as a person’s knowledge of how Bitcoin and the broader crypto market work, including both self-rated understanding and digital skills like evaluating information and keeping devices secure. The third was Fear of Missing Out, often shortened to FoMO, the uneasy feeling that other people are seizing rewarding opportunities while you sit on the sidelines.
To organize their thinking, the researchers leaned on the Theory of Planned Behavior, a long-standing framework from psychologist Icek Ajzen. It proposes that a person’s intention to do something is shaped by their attitude toward it, by social pressure, and by how much control they feel they have. In this study, Bitcoin literacy stood in for attitude and confidence, influencers represented social pressure, and FoMO represented an emotional push toward action.
How the study worked
The team used an online questionnaire distributed through social media and Indonesian crypto community forums. They gathered 131 responses and, after screening for people who explicitly stated an intention to invest in Bitcoin, kept 121 for analysis. Respondents answered on a five-point scale ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement.
The sample skewed young. Roughly half of respondents were between 17 and 20 years old, and about 42 percent were 21 to 25. Around 78 percent were university students. When asked where they got their crypto information, most pointed to YouTube and Instagram, with TikTok also popular, reflecting a preference for video. An open-ended question revealed that one Indonesian figure, Timothy Ronald, was mentioned far more often than any other as a followed source.
To analyze the data, the researchers used a statistical technique called Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling. In plain terms, it is a method for untangling how several variables relate to one another at the same time, which suits a model where one factor might influence another, which in turn influences a third. Before testing their predictions, the team confirmed that their survey questions reliably captured the four concepts they intended to measure.
What the analysis found
Several results matched what prior research would predict. Exposure to social media influencers was positively associated with the intention to invest in Bitcoin. Bitcoin literacy was as well, and strongly so. People who reported knowing more about digital assets tended to report a greater intention to invest. These two findings align with earlier studies suggesting both social influence and financial knowledge play roles in shaping investment decisions.
From there, the picture grew more complicated. The researchers had expected that following influencers would raise people’s Fear of Missing Out. In their data, that link did not reach statistical significance. The authors interpret this as a sign that FoMO around crypto may be driven more by internal feelings or by the market itself than by influencer content alone.
The connection between knowledge and anxiety ran in an unexpected direction. The team found that higher Bitcoin literacy was associated with higher FoMO, not lower. They suggest that people who understand the market more deeply may also be more attuned to its rapid swings and short-term opportunities, which can heighten the worry of missing out.
The unexpected role of anxiety
The most striking result concerns FoMO itself. Across much existing literature, this anxiety is portrayed as a force that pushes people toward impulsive, risk-taking behavior. In this sample, the relationship pointed the other way. Higher FoMO was associated with lower intention to invest.
The authors describe this as “quite unusual and contrary to common assumptions.” They offer a possible explanation: in the context of a volatile and uncertain asset like Bitcoin, the fear of missing out may blend with a fear of making a mistake, leaving people hesitant rather than eager. In their words, FoMO may act as “a suppressor or dampener” on the path from knowledge to investment intention.
This shaped one of their more layered findings. The researchers looked at whether FoMO served as a connecting link between Bitcoin literacy and investment intention. They found that it did play a role, but a complicating one. Greater literacy was linked to more FoMO, and that increase in FoMO was, in turn, linked to a lower intention to invest. So while knowledge tends to raise investment intention directly, the anxiety it can stir up appears to pull in the opposite direction at the same time. By contrast, FoMO did not serve as a meaningful link between influencers and investment intention.
What to take from it, and what not to
For anyone tempted to read broad lessons into these numbers, the researchers themselves flag important limits. The study measured intention to invest, not actual investing behavior, and intention does not always translate into action. The sample was also small and narrow, dominated by young, highly digitally active Indonesians, most of them students. Patterns among this group may not hold for older investors, different countries, or people less immersed in social media.
It is also worth keeping in mind that this is survey research capturing associations at a single point in time. It can show that two things tend to move together, but it cannot prove that one causes the other. The negative link between FoMO and investment intention is a correlation observed in this particular group, not an established rule about how anxiety drives financial choices.
Even with those caveats, the work raises a question worth sitting with. We often assume that more financial knowledge produces calmer, more rational investors, and that the fear of missing out drives reckless buying. This study offers evidence that, at least among young crypto-curious Indonesians, both assumptions may be too simple. Knowing more about Bitcoin was tied to feeling more anxious about it, and that anxiety was tied to holding back. The authors recommend that future research follow people into actual market behavior and account for factors like risk perception to build a fuller understanding of how digital-age investors really decide.
