With the cryptocurrency market cap now estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars and a sort of familiar frenzy kicking into overdrive, here’s another reminder that widespread adoption by the U.S. public has not yet materialized.
A September poll found that 78.6 percent of Americans were aware of Bitcoin, the most famous cryptocurrency—and up to 39.6 percent were open to “the idea of using Bitcoin for transactions and purchases.”
The 1,000-respondent online poll found that just 31.6 percent were aware of Ethereum, a newer cryptocurrency which has exploded in scale to the second-largest market position in recent years. Just 18.2 percent said they planned to invest in Ether tokens. Even fewer had heard or planned to invest in Ripple, the third-largest cryptocurrency.
Almost exactly three-quarters of respondents said they had never heard of initial coin offerings, a complicated and almost completely unregulated form of investment vehicle in which crypto-backed companies sell stakes in “new” cryptocurrencies in lieu of traditional stocks. Just 15.1 percent said they planned to invest in an ICO.More details here... What we are seeing here is that many people are already aware of Bitcoin most probably because it is the coin mostly covered by the big mainstream media and not so much the other coins or alts like Ethereum and Ripple. And this is already a very good awareness percentage compared to maybe other societal trends currently happening.
Mainstream adoption could not be happening overnight. Compared to many big brands on the market, am sure that it took them a lot of time to the tune of many millions just to build up brand awareness and I know that many brand managers would agree with me on this. Now, remember that cryptocurrency has no ads department and it has basically no budget to spend on ads...this is basically the power of the word-of-the-mouth campaign.
Now, having said the above, in my opinion this is just the start and it is a good start actually. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is here to stay. Sorry to Mr. Jamie Dimon as his prediction has not yet come true!
