With the mainstream media covering Bitcoin (BTC) on a regular basis and more and more merchants, both in-store and online, accepting the digital currency, it’s a surprise that a strong majority of Americans are still unaware of the cryptocurrency. Even if they did, though, they wouldn’t own any bitcoins.
According to a new nationwide survey conducted for TheStreet, 76 percent of Americans are completely unaware of bitcoin, while 79 percent of respondents say they have never and would never consider acquiring the virtual currency. In fact, 80 percent of study participants would rather own gold than the digital currency.
It was noted by the study authors that the concept of bitcoins were explained to survey participants after the initial questions.
Despite a small percentage of Americans knowing anything about the world of cryptocurrency, a growing number of youth are more optimistic and enthusiastic about bitcoin. One-third of those between the ages of 18 and 24 say bitcoins help the United States dollar – 38 percent of overall respondents say it hurts the U.S. dollar – compared to 10 percent of those over 65.
In addition, 15 percent of respondents between 18 and 24 years of age would rather own bitcoin than gold, compared to four percent of those over the age of 65.
Only two percent said they owned bitcoin.
“While Bitcoin has attracted the attention of influential hedge fund managers and the research desks of major US banks, an overwhelming majority of Americans remain unaware of crypto currency,” said Joe Deaux, economics analyst at The Street, in a statement.
“Bitcoin’s supporters would argue that the virtual currency remains in its infancy and that a year ago most of Wall Street hadn’t heard of it. But The Street’s survey shows that there isn’t great deviation across income brackets as to how many people know about Bitcoin, own Bitcoin and prefer it to owning gold.”
The national telephone survey was conducted with 1,005 adults between Jan. 24 and 26, 2014. It contains a margin of error of +/- three percentage points.
For more bitcoin news follow PFhub on FaceBook, Twitter or bookmark this page.
