‘Crypto-currency addicts’ can get gambling therapy

 People hooked on trading crypto-currencies are to be offered treatment to deal with their addiction, in the first centre of its kind.

Castle Craig hospital in Peeblesshire in the Scottish Borders has created a course of residential treatment for “crypto addicts”. Experts say the trading of digital currencies or assets such as Bitcoin can become a behavioural addiction, similar to online gambling, with some users obsessively following minute-by-minute fluctuations in prices.

Castle Craig said there were no figures for the number of people addicted to crypto-currency dealing, but there were around 13million people across the world trading in the system.

Chris Burn, a gambling therapist at the hospital, said: “The high-risk, fluctuating crypto-currency market appeals to the problem gambler.

“Bitcoin, for example, has been heavily traded, and huge gains and losses were made. It’s a classic bubble situation.”