Crypto addiction rehab centers are popping up all over the world

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• Bitcoin started trading at $0.0008 in July 2010. Prices peaked above $64,000 in November 2021.
• While the industry made a few people very rich, it also came with problems – including addiction.
• Crypto addiction is like a “casino in your pocket,” says the founder and CEO of The Balance, a crypto rehab center.

It’s been a big, rocky decade for crypto.

One way to measure its popularity is to look at its prices — Bitcoin, one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, began trading at $0.0008 in July 2010. Prices peaked at over $64,000 in November 2021. Today, it is just over $27,000.

It has not always been smooth sailing. Crypto is currently going through a cruel winter of depressed prices, scandals and layoffs. Silvergate Capital — which used to be the go-to bank for the biggest names in crypto — said on March 3 that it plans to write off its assets and liquidate its operations, becoming one of the first mainstream victims of the crypto crash.

A few days later, Silicon Valley Bank and crypto-friendly Signature Bank, New York, collapsed, rocking the banking sector and sparking fears of a contagion that could lead to the next global financial crisis.

And while the industry made a few people very rich, it also came with problems — including addiction.

Enter: luxury crypto rehab centers.

Below, we’ve taken a look at the price tags and offerings of three luxury crypto centers around the world, each claiming to be the best in their field.

The balance: A 4-week stay starting at $192,000

“With crypto addiction, it’s all 24/7 and there’s no market closure,” Abdullah Boulad, founder and CEO of The Balance, a luxury crypto rehab center, told Insider. “That’s why we say it’s like a casino in your pocket,” he added.

Boulad started the crypto program about six years ago in Switzerland and said he sees about a hundred customers a year. Most of these are entrepreneurs between the ages of 30 and 45 and are mostly men, he said.

Today, The Balance has 10 properties across Spain, the UK and Switzerland. It calls itself “the world’s best luxury rehabilitation center and mental health clinic” and a “safe haven where you can find recovery, peace, rest and happiness.” People in the rehabilitation program get access to a personal manager, a chef and 70 specialists such as doctors, psychologists and psychotherapists, per Boulad.

It doesn’t come cheap: A typical four-week crypto rehab program at The Balance costs between €180,000 and €300,000, or $192,000 and $320,000.

Each of The Balance’s treatment villas has a pool, and is located either in the countryside or on the beach, Boulad said. It also offers treatments for alcoholism, drug addiction and detoxes, as well as a program aimed at celebrities in rehab.

The Diamond: $25,000 for 28 days of treatment

In Asia, $25,000 for 28 days will get you an “ultra-custom” treatment at The Diamond, a luxury rehab center in Phuket, Thailand, CEO Theo de Vries told Insider.

Here, 15 rooms sit on top of a mountain overlooking the Andaman Sea. De Vries said clients have access to five clinical psychologists, four clinical addiction counselors, a psychiatrist, 24-7 nurses, four clinical support staff and eight 5-star Thai hospitality staff.

And then there are the property’s luxury offerings: a spa, golf, boat trips and sports activities.

“Anything possible without using drugs or alcohol,” de Vries said, adding: “Phuket is the perfect place for this type of clientele.”

The Diamond began offering crypto rehab services in early 2021. About one in 40 inquiries de Vries receives is about crypto addiction, he said. These inquiries seem to remain constant, regardless of market fluctuations, he said.

Paracelsus Recovery: $100,000 per week for a 4-week program

At about $100,000 a week, Paracelsus Recovery offers a four-week residential treatment program to treat crypto addiction.

Paracelsus began offering the treatment in 2020, CEO Jan Gerber told Insider.

Paracelsus — which owns four residences in Zurich, Switzerland — offers lakefront properties complete with a “private chef and maid, a private client suite in the residence and a separate suite for a 24-hour live-in therapist,” according to Gerber.

Services at Paracelsus include the use of Bentley limousines and a dedicated driver for appointments or excursions, Gerber added. They can even arrange a piano for a client who wants to hone their skills and set up high-end sound systems, gaming consoles, VR and even Netflix for customers, he said.

Since 2020, the center has treated two or three clients annually for crypto addiction.

Does crypto rehab work?

Mark Griffiths, professor of behavioral addiction at Nottingham Trent University, told Insider that he sees crypto trading as a sub-variation of gambling, and therefore sees an addiction to crypto as an addiction to gambling. He says that those who are addicted to crypto exhibit six criteria:

• Salience — crypto trading is the most important thing in their life and they are totally committed to it;
• Conflict — crypto trading conflicts with other important things in life such as relationships, profession and/or education;
• Withdrawals — they experience withdrawal symptoms if they are unable to engage in crypto trading;
• Mood modification – they use crypto trading as a way to change their mood;
• Tolerance — over time they have increased the amount of trading they do daily; and
• Relapse – if a person gives up trading for a while, when they do it again, they go right back to the addictive cycles they were in before.

“If someone meets all six of these criteria, I would classify them as addicted,” Griffiths said. “If they only support some of them, I would see them as having a problem with crypto trading rather than addiction.”

“The number of people who are likely to be genuinely addicted to this is likely to be very small,” he added.

Anna Lembke, a psychiatry professor at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, told the BBC in February that treatment for crypto addiction is similar to other addictions.

“It is a biopsychosocial disease, so it requires a biopsychosocial intervention: medication in some cases, individual and group psychotherapy, changing habits and environment, implementing healthier replacement activities,” she told the news agency.

De Vries said the treatment works: “People got clean. They changed their whole lifestyle. They got families back, and they’re happy because we solved the underlying problems,” he said, adding.

The Balance’s Boulad said people can recover from crypto addiction by working on behavioral patterns and living a balanced life, but relapses do occur. He estimated that the relapse rate is around 20-30% for this type of treatment.

Gerber of Paracelsus said the relapse risk is higher for professional traders or those who have previously made a profit from trading.

“Finding a way to ‘healthy’ trade, with constant exposure to the dynamics of the trade, is very difficult. Complete abstinence is always the safest option with an addiction, but not the only way,” he added.