How is Bitcoin accepted? We surveyed more than 2,000 Americans online

The survey shows that Bitcoin has two obvious development factors: overall, more and more people are beginning to understand it; in terms of age distribution, young people are more inclined to buy and use Bitcoin.

Source: medium.com

Written by: Blockchain Capital Translated by: Lu Jiangfei

Every 18 months, Blockchain Capital commissions Harris to conduct an online survey of more than 2,000 American adults across the country to understand whether ordinary Americans have made progress in the popularization and application of cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain Capital and The Harris Poll first launched this survey in the fall of 2017, and then conducted a second survey in the spring of 2019. The latest survey was completed from October 7 to 9, 2020. This article will analyze the results of this survey in detail.

Of course, there are many other service providers in the market that conduct various cryptocurrency-related surveys, but Blockchain Capital’s survey results are different from them in two main ways:

1. The comparison is more meaningful: Blockchain Capital has conducted the same survey for three consecutive years, so the survey conclusions are more meaningful. Although we add some new questions in each survey, the existing questions remain the same;

2. Use a neutral third party to conduct the survey: All surveys were conducted by Harris Poll. If Blockchain Capital conducted the surveys themselves, the results would naturally be biased towards a crypto-friendly audience.

Cryptocurrency adoption: Bitcoin is becoming more and more popular and is being accepted rapidly

This survey aims to assess the general population's knowledge, familiarity, perception, belief, relative preference, and purchasing tendency of Bitcoin. We can gain in-depth insights into the popularization and application of cryptocurrencies in this survey project. The following figure shows a "progress of cryptocurrency adoption":

As shown in the figure below, we can divide the cryptocurrency adoption progress into three main stages:

1. Learning stage;

2. Affirmation stage;

3. Adoption phase.

It is worth noting that the "Learning Stage" saw the strongest growth from the fall of 2017 to the spring of 2019. However, in the latest survey, it was found that the "Affirmation Stage" had the largest growth. There is no doubt that more and more people have become aware of Bitcoin and are rapidly accepting this emerging thing.

If you are short on time and don’t want to read this article carefully, here is a picture showing some of the key points:

Next, let’s look at the “progress of cryptocurrency adoption” according to the three different stages mentioned above.

"Learning stage": recognition, familiarity, perception

Like most indicators in the "learning stage", the recent survey shows that more and more people have begun to understand cryptocurrencies. Among them, 90% of the respondents said they had heard of Bitcoin. Therefore, the "awareness" indicator can be said to be relatively saturated. Moreover, this indicator is the only question in this survey that does not show a serious age bias - regardless of age, most Americans have heard of Bitcoin.

Similar to the “awareness” indicator, we observed an increase in the general population’s “familiarity” with Bitcoin, but the overall trend was stable—the proportion of people who were “at least somewhat familiar” with Bitcoin increased from 43% in the spring of 2019 to 45% in the fall of 2020. In this latest survey in 2020, this indicator has a certain age bias, including:

• 60% of 18-34 year olds say they are “at least somewhat familiar” with Bitcoin;

• Only 24% of those over 65 said they were “at least somewhat familiar” with Bitcoin.

In terms of "strongly" or "somewhat" agreeing that "Bitcoin is a positive innovation in financial technology", the percentage of survey results that agree with this view also rose by 2 basis points - from 43% in the spring of 2019 to 45% in the fall of 2020. In the latest survey in 2020, this indicator has a certain age bias, among which young people are still the most inclined to be optimistic about Bitcoin, specifically:

• 60% of 18-34 year olds “strongly” or “somewhat” agree that “Bitcoin is a positive innovation in financial technology,” up 12 percentage points from fall 2017);

• 58% of those aged 35-44 “strongly” or “somewhat” agree that “Bitcoin is a positive innovation in financial technology”;

• Only 33% of those aged 45 and over “strongly” or “somewhat” agree that “Bitcoin is a positive innovation in financial technology.”

“Confirmation Stage”: Confirmation, Relative Preference Ratio, and Purchase Intention

In the latest survey results in the fall of 2020, the strongest growth was in the "affirmation stage". Although the Blockchain Capital team expected a significant increase in this indicator, the results were still somewhat surprising.

When assessing the "affirmative stage", Blockchain Capital chose to ask respondents to what extent they agreed that "most people will use Bitcoin in the next ten years?" The percentage of people who "very" or "somewhat" agreed with this statement increased from 33% in the spring of 2019 to 41% in the fall of 2020, an increase of 8 percentage points, of which

• 56% of 18-34 year olds “strongly” or “somewhat” agree that most people will use Bitcoin within the next decade;

• 57% of those aged 35-44 “strongly” or “somewhat” agree that most people will use Bitcoin within the next ten years.

A new question was added to the latest survey, asking Americans whether Bitcoin will last longer or the Euro will last longer. The result showed that 38% of people thought Bitcoin would last longer than the Euro, and 58% of people aged 18-34 thought Bitcoin would last longer than the Euro.

In addition to the belief in the future of Bitcoin, the survey also attempts to assess whether the general population would prefer Bitcoin or other assets as their investment targets. Therefore, the survey asked a question: Would you rather own $1,000 worth of Bitcoin or $1,000 worth of government bonds/stocks/real estate/gold? As a result, the relative preference rate for investing in Bitcoin has increased across the board, with particularly strong growth among young people.

If we do not divide the survey into age groups, the overall results are as follows:

• 26% prefer Bitcoin to government bonds (up from 21% in spring 2019);

• 23% prefer Bitcoin to stocks (up from 17% in spring 2019);

• 20% prefer Bitcoin to real estate (up from 14% in spring 2019);

• 18% prefer Bitcoin to gold (up from 12% in spring 2019).

Among people aged 18-34:

• 38% prefer Bitcoin to government bonds (up from 30% in spring 2019);

• 35% prefer Bitcoin to stocks (up from 27% in spring 2019);

• 33% prefer Bitcoin to real estate (up from 24% in spring 2019);

• 31% prefer Bitcoin to gold (up from 22% in spring 2019).

Among people aged 35-44:

• 36% prefer Bitcoin to government bonds (up from 27% in spring 2019);

• 31% prefer Bitcoin to stocks (up from 22% in spring 2019);

• 25% prefer Bitcoin to real estate (up from 15% in spring 2019);

• 26% prefer Bitcoin to gold (up from 14% in spring 2019).

Although the price of Bitcoin is still about 50% below its all-time high at the time of this survey, the willingness of ordinary people to buy Bitcoin has increased. Overall, the proportion of people who said they are "very" or "somewhat" likely to buy Bitcoin in the next five years has increased by 7 percentage points - from 27% in spring 2019 to 34% in autumn 2020.

Consistent with the general findings in this survey, younger people appear to be most inclined to buy Bitcoin, with:

• 55% of those aged 18-34 say they are “very” or “somewhat” likely to buy Bitcoin in the next 5 years (up 13 percentage points from 42% in spring 2019)

• Only 26% of those aged 35 and over said they were “very” or “somewhat” likely to buy Bitcoin in the next five years.

The “Adoption Phase”: Owners and Users

The percentage of people who own cryptocurrencies has increased across the board (only 16% owned Bitcoin in the spring of 2019, and that number grew to 24% in the fall of 2020). Among those who have “at least heard of crypto assets” in this latest survey:

• 14% claimed to own Bitcoin;

• 8% claimed to own Bitcoin Cash;

• 6% claimed to own BNB;

• 5% claimed to own Ether.

in conclusion

The biggest takeaway from this survey is that over time, Bitcoin has two very distinct development factors:

• First, as Bitcoin continues to prove itself year after year, more and more people are beginning to learn about it (regardless of age).

• Second, over time, young people now account for a large portion of the total Bitcoin economic and investment activity - it is particularly noteworthy that young people are more likely to buy and use Bitcoin than older people.

In summary, for Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies more broadly), technology (and macro) investors have long focused on fostering interest, engagement, and activity among younger demographics.

Data doesn’t lie. If you are a forward-looking company or investor, do you now know how to determine your market positioning?