Bitcoin study reveals false beliefs on ease of use and privacyhttp://phys.org/news/2016-01-bitcoin-reveals-false-beliefs-ease.htmlPeople who have used Bitcoin, and those who don't have any experience with it, have something in common: Both groups share misconceptions about how the controversial digital currency actually works.
People who have never used Bitcoin – an internet-based form of money – don't think they ever could. Even Bitcoin users are not well-versed in how it works and overestimate, for example, the privacy of transactions, according to a study by Janne Lindqvist, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and member of Rutgers' WINLAB (Wireless Information Network Laboratory), and two graduate students, Xianyi Gao and Gradeigh D. Clark.
Still, study participants overall viewed Bitcoin as an ideal payment system.
The peer-reviewed study – the first-of-its-kind – will be formally published in May at the annual Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, more commonly known as CHI 2016, in San Jose, California. CHI is the premier international conference on human-computer interaction.
Bitcoin is a new type of money that relies on a decentralized peer-to-peer network with a public ledger that tracks transactions. Two people can make transactions, with degrees of anonymity, across continents, at any denomination, and without any transaction fees going to a third party, according to the Rutgers study. The study's results illustrate Bitcoin's tradeoffs, uses and barriers to entry.
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