Cryptocurrency Loss

📉🧠 Can cryptocurrency losses affect not only your wallet but also your mental health?
When the cryptocurrencies you invested in with such enthusiasm plummet, is what you experience really just a financial loss? Our new study, conducted with İbrahim Karakaya and İbrahim Gündoğmuş and published in Psychiatry International, suggests that cryptocurrency losses may be associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms in some individuals.

Highlights from our study of 94 physicians in Türkiye who reported financial losses in cryptocurrency markets 👇
🔹 19.1% of participants reported significant levels of symptoms on the IES-R screening questionnaire, which measures event-related distress. Important note: this is not a clinical diagnosis of PTSD, but a screening finding that signals a need for attention.

🔹 The determining factor appears to be the severity of exposure rather than age or marital status: those with a high symptom burden had invested an average of 39% of their savings in cryptocurrency, compared with 23% in the other group.

🔹 Maladaptive schemas originating in childhood were more prominent among those with a high symptom burden: Failure ("I am inadequate"), Negativity/Pessimism, Defectiveness ("there is something wrong with me"), and Punitiveness ("I made a mistake; I deserved it"). These patterns can cause the loss to undermine a person's self-worth and sense of safety.

⚠️ The cryptocurrency market's round-the-clock availability and volatility, constant notifications, and flashing price screens can lead the brain to perceive the loss as an "ongoing threat," fueling a cycle of sleeplessness, tension, and constant preoccupation with the market.

💡 So what can you do? Stop blaming yourself, manage your screen time and "revenge trading," avoid taking risks that could undermine your sense of safety, and seek trauma-focused psychological support if needed.

You can find the details and the article here. 

Source: Karakaya İ., Gündoğmuş İ. & Yaşar A. B. (2026). Cryptocurrency Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms, and Early Maladaptive Schemas in Physicians. Psychiatry International.