Bitcoin Forum

Larg mainstreet institutional adoption and low mainstreet adoption, a survey was conducted in America recently on how bitcoin adoption and usage have grown in America  owing to the fact that in recent time so many institutions have adopted and invested in bitcoin within and outside the country, but findings have shown that most of Americans have either not hard of bitcoin or used it.  This have spiked so much reactions and I thought I could bring the discussion here to know your stand on this survey result.
Link to news
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-19/bitcoin-btc-and-cryptocurrencies-prices-surge-but-understanding-is-limited?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=content&utm_content=understandingbitcoin&fbclid=IwAR2Dh3usELvBRMlkePPPEIQX6oSt4dkDol6uVANh97AFXmGhFOHTQzjEPFA

I believe more than 90% of the users here in this forum don't understand how bitcoin works either. But they use it anyway.

I am sure 99% of Visa users don't know how Visa works as well. But that never stopped people from using it :)

Wanted to say exactly that. But thats not just case with Visa, 99% of the people have no idea how fiat money is created, but that doesn't stop them from using it. Hell, I am sure that thought never even crossed their mind, and same can be applied for everything else that people are using on the daily basis.

People want ease of use above everything, and when BTC reaches that point (along with cheap fees) it will enter the mainstream, as simple as that.

An unfortunate truth. But there's a difference with the necessity of understanding "how it works" with Bitcoin vs Visa though. With Visa and the likes of Mastercard, all they need to know is to not publicly expose their debit/credit card details and online banking information. And while it's pretty much the same with Bitcoin private keys, people can call their banks when something goes wrong, while with Bitcoin, you're pretty much screwed. Hence with Bitcoin, people definitely need to be a lot more knowledgeable and a lot less careless.

I agree with the report, the vast majority of people (worldwide) dont know about Bitcoin,
most wont use it and I guess the mechanics of how it works might scare some and confuse
others, particularly older generations but the younger ones will/would be undaunted.

Its true we dont necessarily need to understand how it works but there are certain aspects
of ownership which is essential knowledge like wallets and being able to send, receive and
secure.

I guess this just proves we’re still early in bitcoin. If you walk into any major city in the western world & ask 100 people if they own bitcoin, how many do you think would say yes? I think maybe 1 or 2 maximum which proves we  are early. Bitcoin is the future of finance & it’s coming.

You made a good point. People generally don't care about how something was created. They just want to choose the more advantageous one and use it. And I find it very normal. Because not many people are keen on the history of a technological tool etc. . The curious ones are in the minority and I think it won't change in the future also.

As much i know 99% whole world users dont know how cryptocurrency works. Like other user gave example of VISA how 99% dont know it use but still it is working , so it is not that how much percentage users know it but important is how much cryptocurrency is used in real life , that will make the cryptocurrency grow.

People don't must to know how Microsoft Word or Excel works in order to use it for their tasks in office. They only have to know and have good skills to use those softwares with UIs. The technical code, script behind are not matters they need to know. It is for developers.

As same as when you use ATM to withdraw your fiats from banks, you don't have to know how ATM was installed and how it works.

With bitcoin, know about bitcoin wallet, private keys, seeds and customize fee for transactions. More than enough to use bitcoin.

Well, what would you expect, there are still a lot of people who don't know about cryptocurrency so they don't even try to explore it and there are also a lot of people who use to buy bitcoin and explore it doesn't have enough knowledge about it or they don't know how does it work just like me, we don't need to learn those things because we can still access about it, as long as we know how to use it and its purpose then I think that's enough.

It's the most obvious case among most of service as they don't understand what is happening in the background but still they prefer to use it because it's famous and most of the people are using it.Same is the case with Bitcoin as a large percentage of investors don't how does Bitcoin work based on decentralised network.They will not be familiar with the terms POW,SHA-256 or 512 algorithm, Locking and unlocking script and some others but still they are using its service.Bitcoin is built on that basis that a common person easily understand its front working that you can transfer your money over blockchain with the help of private keys and bitcoin address.So you are right most people ignore its internal working but still they prefer to use it which is somehow good for its adoption.

You just have to look at some newbies posts here to say that majority or at leat those who have started on their bitcoin journey is still somewhat confuse and really don't understand how everything works. Just a simply transfer of bitcoin, you will hear a lot of complains from them.

So I'm not surprised by the statistics, on the contrary, it may reflect the true numbers, large numbers are lost, they just want to invest and hope that their money will grow without knowing the intricacies behind.

large percentage of Americans don't know how hamburgers are made yet they are still morbidly obese.

this is more like it and it is not limited to Americans. but all around the world a large percentage of people have not yet heard about bitcoin or are seriously discouraged from using it because of some FUD that lied to them about what bitcoin is and what it does.
this is why bitcoin adoption is still very tiny.

I also don't really understand how bitcoin works but I am happy with the blockchain network that is so efficient at sending my friends abroad without having to use paypal or other payment instruments

many countries disagree with bitcoin for whatever reason they are afraid, in my opinion bitcoin is a very efficient means of payment in today's world

People don't really need to understand how it works, but what they should understand is Bitcoin's main properties. If people don't understand that if you lose your private key you lose your coins forever, that if you send transaction to wrong address, you're unlikely to get it back, that if you don't control the key you don't really control the coin, and so on and so on; then it's a problem that can lead to very painful experience.

Some countries do not agree with bitcoin because of its high voting and very risky indeed. The regulations given to bitcoin are only for trading commodities and should not be used as a legal means of payment. Bitcoin is still not an efficient payment today for several reasons. Bitcoin is still being developed and in the future maybe bitcoin will be the best means of payment and side by side with legalized payment instruments.

Institutional adoption is by no means a suitable indicator of mainstream adoption. It just means that its volatility nature allows some riskier firms to venture into crypto. While it isn't very hard to learn the basics of Bitcoin, which by the way would give you quite some insight if you can read the whitepaper, it just doesn't make sense for the general population to use it. There isn't really any viable and widespread real life use as of now and possibly in the near future.

It is not basically new and it is just normal for the reason that not just American people are encountering such difficulty on understanding how does Bitcoin works but as well as lots of people around the globe and might even in this forum alone. Understanding Bitcoin's existence, importance and how does it work are the essential and basic things to know upon entering this industry but it seems that even people seems to be growing in engagement with Bitcoin, still a big population of users are having difficulty on understanding how does Bitcoin truly works. Despite of the fact that Bitcoin is popular, still many are finding it complicated to study how does it work for they are just after the reward that comes in profit because of its volatility and are skipping to basically understand what other things Bitcoin can provide or simply how does Bitcoin works.

So the survey says that majority of American's have not heard about bitcoin, it is possible that normal citizens are not aware of bitcoin and might not have invested in them but that does not mean anything as there are investors from around the globe who are actively investing for years. I do not follow these surveys as it will not show the entire demography.

There are so many people around the world who don't know much about Bitcoin but use it anyway. They have just heard about it like they can make a good profit by investing in it and they are taking their chances. I wish more people would know how it works and what the difference with fiat is.

I think part of the problem with US adoption is that the government has made purchasing, trading, and owning crypto unnecessarily complicated. I live in NY and the restrictions here are absurd. We have access to two exchanges and that's it. Both have the highest fees I've seen. I cannot even use my localbitcoins account anymore. A few years ago I would sell crypto to people all around my area in person and meet and discuss crypto as well. NY might deviate from the norm but I think the same attitude applies. On top of that I think mainstream financial media has been consistently snubbing bitcoin until just recently because it was seen as a competitor to more traditional investments. I think in general America has been having a lot of trouble maintaining itself as a modern country.

I have a friend who already 5 years in crypto trading but still doesn’t know how to send crypto.
He treats crypto like stocks, he only trade it, and do nothing about it.
A few days ago he asked me how to send crypto to his wallet ouside the exchange market.
IMO, you may dont know how the crypto works, but for basic things like sending and receiving crypto, you must know it.
That is the most basic things that you can learn about crypto.

I totally agree with you, US government strick measures against cryptocurrency have truly made crypto usage and knowledge in the US redundant and this is one of the reason the researchers chose as a case study in this research.

I think that a little over 10% of people in the US who haven't heard of Bitcoin is actually a very good sign. It's all down to the way an event is framed, and Bloomberg is clearly not pro-Bitcoin (just try googling 'bloomberg opinion bitcoin' and see what you get), so they're stressing the minority here. It could be written '90% of people in the US have at least heard of Bitcoin', and while the info is the same, the attitude is very different.
As for 61% of people not understanding how cryptos work, I agree with that's been mentioned by bitmover about people using stuff without understanding it.
And of course the article doesn't mention a bullish thing from the poll results by the same company (https://theharrispoll.com/stimulus-check-spending/), namely that 7% of people used their stimulus checks to invest in Bitcoin. Overall, I think the situation is not as bad as the article tries to suggest by phrasing stuff this way and cherry-picking the findings.

It is really an interesting thing for a person who has been trading cryptocurrencies for 5 YEARS.   ;D  It is actually not a hard thing to do and like you said it is a very basic information in this market. I understand that people may not be well-informed about how Bitcoin works but this could be the most surprising thing I've ever heard.  :D

Besides not understanding they also don't trust bitcoin, what means they don't have interest for it, otherwise they would have searched for informations regards the matter, concluding it's safe, since you follow all the necessary security measures. Probably americans are comfortable with their currently life standards that bitcoin looks uninteresting for them.

Anyway, these percentages don't look so low at all. 28% somewhat familiar is a very good indicative.