The diffusion of digital payment technologies and emerging forms of digital currencies raises critical questions about the role of privacy attitudes in shaping public acceptance of data-intensive financial innovations. This study applies a new six-item General Information Privacy Scale (GIPS), grounded in a three-component attitude model, to examine how such general privacy concerns influence the acceptance and use of digital currencies across different sociocultural contexts. Conceptually, the analysis builds on a negative conception of privacy as freedom from external interference, contrasting it with positive, control-oriented notions of informational self-determination. By adopting this theoretical stance, the study highlights the predictive relevance of enduring, cross-situational privacy attitudes for technology adoption behavior.

Using data from Germany, India, and the United States, we check the GIPS with respect to measurement invariance and convergent validity and model its relationship with digital currency usage within a factorial survey. Results demonstrate good model fit, metric invariance across the three national samples, and strong predictive validity: higher privacy concerns consistently correspond to lower acceptance of digital currencies. The findings underscore the importance of privacy attitudes as a key determinant of behavioral measures covering financial innovations. In particular, we find a stronger impact of privacy attitudes over trust in institutions and the behavioral cues presented in the vignettes including descriptive social norms.

By integrating comparative privacy research with the study of financial technology adoption, this paper advances understanding of how privacy orientations structure individuals’ adoption and engagement with novel digital infrastructures. As national and global regulatory environments evolve, the GIPS provides a conceptually coherent and empirically validated tool for examining how privacy concerns shape public responses to the ongoing digital transformation of money.