International Perceptions Of Bitcoin, Should We Be Worried About This?

In a new report called The ING International Survey, published on Seeking Alpha, by Jessica Exton, a Behavioural Scientist for ING, 15,000 participants, across 15 countries have been surveyed to gain an insight into the European public perceptions of cryptocurrency. The survey (total sample size; 14,828 participants) worked across 15 counties in Europe, plus, the United States and Australia to determine exactly how people understand cryptocurrency. The countries include: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Turkey, and the UK Participants were asked questions ranging from; Have you heard of cryptocurrency? and Do you own cryptocurrency? to do you think cryptocurrency is the future? You can see the full report for yourself, here- https://seekingalpha.com/article/4184112-public-perceptions-cryptocurrency The data states that the majority of surveyed countries have head of cryptocurrencies, with the European average sitting at 66% of participants across the surveyed European countries, who have heard of cryptocurrencies. The most ‘aware’ country was found to be Austria, with a score of 70%. Demographically, Men, and those aged between 25-54 are more likely to have heard of cryptocurrency. The survey then goes on to explore if participants believed they would own cryptocurrency in the future. Turkey came out on top here, with 45% of participants believing they would own cryptocurrency in the future. Surprisingly though across the European countries, only 25% of participants had an interest in future investments. As the survey continues, it explores some really interesting questions, one of which looks into where participants would go to find out more information regarding cryptocurrencies. On average across Europe, 27% of participants would look towards a specialist website (such as cryptodaily.co.uk), otherwise, 21% would refer to a financial or banking advisor. What can we deduce from all of this? In order to see the full picture, you need to check out the full report. Generally, though, the findings make it pretty clear that overall, the general public in the USA, Australia and across Europe are ambivalent towards cryptocurrencies. This is a hypothesis we could all draw no doubt, but it does seem that a lack of knowledge and an unwillingness to learn is making the general public quite weary about cryptocurrencies, as you can see from this chart (image sourced from https://seekingalpha.com/article/4184112-public-perceptions-cryptocurrency?page=3) This is the big challenge that cryptocurrency adoption will face and frankly, there’s no real way around it, not at least until blockchain technology becomes a little friendlier and of course, until cryptocurrency shakes off its association with crime and deviance. This report tells us that there is indeed a very long way to go here, but we can find some optimism in the fact that, at the very least, some people are talking about crypto.