A new survey on Bitcoin adoption reveals that cryptocurrency – or at least first-mover Bitcoin – is inching closer to mainstream success. According to a study conducted by the Global Blockchain Business Council and SurveyMonkey, six in ten Americans have at least heard of Bitcoin, and five percent already own some.
But that number is likely on the rise: 21% said they were “considering” adding some Bitcoin to their investment holdings.
Before you ask, this wasn’t just an online poll. The survey had nearly 6,000 respondents, and the data was analyzed using US Census Bureau information to ensure the results represented the population at large, with just a 2% margin of error.
There were some other interesting findings in the survey. Bitcoin holders tend to trust Bitcoin (nearly 25%) more than they trust the government (20%). A third of Bitcoin holders admitted they were using it as a way to dodge government regulations, but most (63%) saw it as a valuable growth investment.
But surprisingly, Bitcoin holders were actually more likely (41%) than the general public (38%) to believe that Bitcoin is in a bubble that’s likely to pop this year.
Less surprising: Bitcoin holders tend to skew young, white, and male. Among millenials, the rate of Bitcoin holders may be as high as 10%, while the rate among the elderly is virtually nil.
Room to Grow at Home and Abroad
These survey results show significant growth of Bitcoin awareness in the US, but with 40% of the populace still unaware of the cryptocurrency, there’s plenty of room to grow.
Internationally, Bitcoin has even more space to stretch. In China, influential investor Charles Xue thinks as much as 80% of the populace has never heard of Bitcoin. That’s a potential 1.1 billion people who’ve yet to be introduced to the crypto market in China alone.
In other huge markets, the story is the same. Bitcoin adoption is still low enough in India that regulatory agencies don’t consider it worth the effort to regulate. In Africa, too, Bitcoin awareness and adoption remain quite low, although those numbers are growing.
Bubble or not, it’s pretty clear that Bitcoin’s still a long ways away from its adoption ceiling.
