We proxy retail investor attention through Google Trends and find that fungible and non-fungible crypto tokens generate greater attention from high-gambling propensity regions. Crypto attention is higher during bubble-like episodes in the crypto market and for more lottery-like tokens. Moreover, retail crypto attention decreases after sports gambling is legalized. Higher token attention is associated with more contributors and higher fundraising. However, consumer credit default rates spike after periods of high crypto attention, but solely in the subprime segment. Overall, our findings suggest that gambling preferences strongly predict retail investor interest in the crypto market.

Using comprehensive credit bureau data, we document that consumers who borrow from marketplace lending (MPL) platforms have lower credit scores and higher default rates in the long run relative to observably similar applicants for bank loans. The long-run credit scores and default rates of MPL borrowers are especially worse when the MPL platforms provide less information to MPL investors, when MPL borrowers are benchmarked against relationship bank borrowers, and for one-time MPL borrowers as compared to repeat MPL borrowers. Overall, our results suggest that MPL lenders face greater information asymmetries with respect to their borrowers than traditional banks.

Using the near universe of U.S. consumer credit cards, we show that banks transmit their wholesale funding shocks to consumers by reducing their credit card limits. Credit-constrained consumers who are unable to hedge against the transmitted shock by accessing other credit cards experience a stronger and more persistent reduction in aggregate credit card limits at the consumer level. Consequently, these credit-constrained consumers reduce their aggregate credit card borrowing. Our results document a credit card lending channel for the transmission of adverse bank shocks and show who bears the costs of fragile bank funding structures. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.