Still only 5% Adoption !
Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin are all the rage now, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is looking to become rich off of virtual coins. A recent survey from Survey Monkey and Global Blockchain Business found that while about 60% of all Americans have heard of Bitcoin, only about 5% actually have some in a digital portfolio.
Another January study from the COBINHOOD cryptocurrency service platform found out that half of respondents understand how cryptocurrency is a digital decentralized currency, but the vast majority still have no idea what an ICO is. Despite the solid amount of people who had an idea about cryptocurrency and its uses, about 80% of respondents said they had no idea where to actually buy virtual currency. In addition, 44% of those in the survey said there were currently less than 10 different cryptocurrencies out on the market right now.
These latest survey results represent a sharp uptick in the amount of people who have some sort of understanding of Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency world as a whole compared to previous years. They also encapsulate the changing ideas about the place of virtual currencies in the financial world.
Things were a lot different back in 2013 when Bitcoin was just a fraction of the price it is at today. Echoing some of today’s sentiments, the coin was split into camps of supporters and early adopters who saw it as the future of money, and others who dismissed it as a Ponzi or get rich quick scheme.
Survey firm On Device set out to ask 22,000 consumers in May 2013 about Bitcoin and found that about 25% of respondents had heard of it. However, people who were knowledgeable about the cryptocurrency displayed a high degree of trust in it. 62% of people in the survey who were Bitcoin-aware also had confidence in it. Most people who were actually using Bitcoin were purchasing electronic items, computer hardware, and DVDs with the digital coins.
The survey results drew the interest of some VC firms who were intrigued that people displayed a high degree of trust in a currency that was markedly different then traditional money.
Views started to shift as Bitcoin’s popularity slowly began to rise in subsequent years. A survey from January 2015 by Coin Center revealed that about 65% of people who responded had no familiarity with Bitcoin.
Coin Center expressed alarm at the results due to the intense media hype Bitcoin was starting to accrue, and because people in the survey were divided about if the government should come in and totally ban the virtual currency or just leave it alone. Coin Center wrote about the need for more public policy work about educating the public about Bitcoin, but also expressed hope that people would come around to the digital currency and begin to see its usefulness in the modern world.
Much has changed again just a couple of years later. An October 2017 survey from LendEDU found that younger Americans consistently had more knowledge then their older counterparts on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple, and were planning to invest in cryptocurrencies at far higher rates than adults who were over 45.
The latest results from Survey Money and Global Blockchain Business seem to echo the trends in the past couple of years. Knowledge about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies continues to grow, but the number of people actually buying and investing is still a bit low. People in the survey said they were getting into cryptocurrency in order to circumnavigate government regulations, to use it a store of value, and hold on to it as an investment.
Even though the prices of cryptocurrency skyrocketed last year, a solid number of respondents saw a direr 2018 for digital currency. 38% of those sampled think the cryptocurrency bubble is going to pop this year, while 41% of those holding Bitcoin have the same sentiments. However, 70% of people who were in the survey think Bitcoin’s price is going to be much higher five years from now.
