A new survey by Blockchain capital shows that 11% of American adults are holding onto Bitcoin. This is indeed encouraging news since it represents a significant improvement compared to recent years. The percentages of American Bitcoin Holders were broken down into age groups comprising of people between the ages of 18-34, 35-44,45-54, 55-64, and 65 and older.
The different age groups reveal exciting news about interest in crypto-currency. Interest among the youth presents an opportunity for studying the technology behind crypto’s as well as innovation, while interest among middle-aged people will definitely spur investment in cryptos. The kicker though is interest among elderly individuals above the 65 year mark.
This last group is so exciting because it is not a group that is commonly known to be knowledgeable about technology. It certainly is a pleasant surprise that individuals in this age group know about crypto let alone the technology younger age groups have interacted with for years. Surprisingly, among the over 65 age group, only 12% of hadn’t heard of Bitcoin. A good 20% of them were “somewhat” familiar with Bitcoin, which is a 5% increase since the last time this survey was conducted.
Though impressive, that last statistic is a far cry from the 60% of respondents between the ages of 18-34 who were “somewhat” familiar with Bitcoin. This survey featured just over 2,000 participants and uncovered that Bitcoin awareness was remarkably high. An impressive 9/10 in each of the sampled age groups had heard of Bitcoin. Over 40% of sampled respondents also believed that Bitcoin was a positive financial innovation.
Confidence in the outlook of Bitcoin in the near future was not as positive though, with almost half of all participants feeling that Bitcoin will be in everyday use within the next decade. 27% of all respondents indicated that they were likely to buy Bitcoin within the next 5 years.
Despite the inferences of the survey showing high interest in crypto among the respondents, less than a quarter of them prefer Bitcoin as an investment vehicle over; government bonds, real estate, gold, or stocks. An astonishing 88% of respondents preferred investing in Gold over Bitcoin, while 79% leaned towards government bonds. Despite these numbers looking atrocious to crypto enthusiasts, they also do represent a 2- 4% improvement among those who would prefer Bitcoin across all age groups.
The survey also revealed that around 11% of all the people polled were holding crypto-currency, with an impressive 2% of the people polled over the age of 65 confirming that they held some BTC. 16% of those between the ages of 18-34 also confirmed BTC ownership. At this rate, crypto ownership rates in America could double or even triple within the next decade.
The report concluded that;
“To help put the millennial proclivity to Bitcoin in perspective: Only 37% of people under 35 are invested in the stock market, so the data point that 20% of those in the same group own Bitcoin is particularly surprising.”
The data also came with this caveat;
“All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, errors associated with nonresponse, errors associated with question-wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, the words “margin of error” are avoided as they are misleading”
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