Research suggests that Bitcoin is more fully understood and accepted today across US society than it was at the height of the bull market of 2017. According to a recent study, young adults are way ahead of other demographics with regards awareness, familiarity, perception, and likelihood to buy Bitcoin in the future.
Blockchain Capital recently asked 2,029 randomly selected American adults a series of questions relating to Bitcoin. The survey was a follow up to a similar one conducted in October 2017, when prices were rising and overall market sentiment was entirely different.
US Public Becoming Increasingly Knowledgeable About Bitcoin
The test was divided into various categories. First, the participants were asked if they had even heard of Bitcoin. A massive 89 percent answered that they had. This was up from 77 percent in October 2017. This is hardly surprising given that the spectacular crash of late 2017/early 2018 was covered by just about ever mainstream media outlet on the planet.
Next, the participants’ familiarity with Bitcoin was gauged. They were given the question: How familiar are you with Bitcoin? along with a series of responses: “never heard of it”, “heard of but not familiar”, “somewhat familiar”, “very familiar”, and “I own/have owned Bitcoin”.
The percentage of people that are “at least somewhat familiar” with Bitcoin rose by nearly half — from 30 percent in October 2017 to 43% in April 2019.
Amongst those aged 18 to 34, 60 percent described themselves as at least ‘somewhat familiar’ with Bitcoin — up from 42 percent in October 2017. An equally large increase was observed in the age group 45-54. Previously, just 25 percent were at least familiar with Bitcoin. Now that figure is 43 percent.
The percentages of those familiar with the cryptocurrency really diminish in older generations but still show an increase over those from 2017. Of those aged 55 to 64, 32 percent were at least familiar with it. This was up from 22 percent in 2017. Meanwhile, just 20 percent of those over 65 claimed to be knowledgeable about the decentralised payment tech, up from the 15 percent observed in the previous study.
Next, the participants were asked how much they agreed that Bitcoin is a positive financial and technological innovation. Again, there was a significant increase in those answering favourably here too. In 2017, 34 percent of those asked agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. This rose by 9 percent in the recent survey to 43 percent.
Younger respondents were much more likely to view Bitcoin positively. Of those aged between 18 and 34, a massive 59 percent said that they though Bitcoin was a positive innovation versus 48 percent in the previous survey.
The figures relating to the likelihood that Bitcoin will be widely used in the future show similar tendencies too. A third of US adults now believe that the digital asset will be in common use in the next 10 years. This is a five percent increase to the figure observed in the previous study.
Raising this overall average once again is the younger generation. A massive 48 percent of those aged between 18 and 34 agree that Bitcoin will be widely used within the next decade.
The findings also indicate that 27 percent of people are considering buying Bitcoin in the next five years. Despite the bear market, this figure is up from just 19 percent in 2017.
The write up of the report, summarised by Spencer Bogart, concludes by inquiring about people’s store-of-value preferences. The respondents were asked which asset they would like to own $1,000 of between Bitcoin and a traditional investment:
- Over one in five people said they would prefer the cryptocurrency to government bonds.
- Bitcoin was preferable to stocks for 17 percent of those asked.
- Fourteen percent of respondents would prefer Bitcoin to real estate.
- Just 12 percent said they would rather have digital gold over physical gold.
Again, the figures for the youngest age group in the sample reflect a much greater acceptance of Bitcoin than the rest of the US public. Almost one in three prefers Bitcoin to government bonds, more than one in four prefers Bitcoin to stocks, just under one in four would rather own Bitcoin than real-estate, and over one in five would favour the crypto over gold.
Younger Generations Championing Crypto Revolution
The figures show that the younger generations are much more knowledgeable of, familiar with, and accepting of Bitcoin. This is summed up by Bogart himself when he states:
“Ultimately, Bitcoin is a demographic mega-trend: Younger demographics are leading in terms of Bitcoin awareness, familiarity, perception, conviction, propensity to purchase, and ownership rates.”
As a purely digital currency, it figures that the first to get to grips with the concept would be those that have grown up in a purely digital world. In that vein, crypto investment fund Adamant Capital’s CEO Michiel Lescrauwaet neatly summed up why digital cash might be alluring for millennials earlier today in response to the research detailed above:
It makes sense that Millennials like Bitcoin most:
1) found their way through 2008 crisis as young adults
2) grew up with P2P (BitTorrent, Limewire)
3) digitally native & familiar with open source (Linux, Wikipedia)
5) first investments in zero interest rate environment https://t.co/bQQLmwFk0u
— Michiel Lescrauwaet (@MLescrauwaet) April 30, 2019
Related Reading: Global Bitcoin Acceptance Up More than 702% Since 2013
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