The Castle Craig Hospital in Scotland is to be the first in the UK to treat cryptocurrency trading addiction, giving weight to the the meme that trading digital assets is akin to heading to the casino.
The facility has tailored a course of residential treatment for those struggling to deal with issues associated with the activity and even to ween off Bitcoin. Highly volatile and short fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices have contributed to behavioral addictions similar to online gambling.
The West Linton Facility is even using techniques derived from gambling addiction programs on cryptocurrency addicts.
“The high risk, fluctuating cryptocurrency market appeals to the problem gambler. It provides excitement and an escape from reality. Bitcoin, for example, has been heavily traded and huge gains and losses were made. It’s a classic bubble situation.” said gambling therapist Chris Burn.
Tony Marini, Castle Craig, elaborated:
“I see cryptocurrency trading as a way for people to escape from themselves, into another world, because they don’t like the world they’re in.”
While there are no statistics for cryptocurrency trading addictions, or even really any studies, just over 13 million people globally trade digital assets.
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