Reactions to Caitie Lustig's (UC Irvine PhD student, California, USA) survey

[imperial]

I am interested in seeing other peoples responses to Caitie Lustig's survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bitcoinsurvey). She is a graduate student researching the Bitcoin community, not market (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=308727.msg3311237#msg3311237). Her request appears genuine. Like most academic research this will probably go nowhere, but I do think it is a good summary of other questions asked here occasionally. So if you are inclined, copy all or some of the questions and answers, and share them here. Thanks.

Ms. Lustig,
I hope you share the results of your survey and a link to the full paper produced.

[crazy_rabbit]

Just filled out the survey. I hope others do too, takes only 3 minutes of your time!

[imperial]

4. Do you mine bitcoins?
No, but I used to.

5. Below are some reasons that people might use bitcoin. Please rate them according to how accurately these reasons describe your motivations for using bitcoin.
Bitcoin fits my economic or political values. [Agree]
Bitcoin allows me to increase my business. [N/A]
Purchasing bitcoins is a good investment for me. [Strongly agree]
I want to make money through mining. [Strongly agree]
Bitcoin is appealing to me because I want to make anonymous transactions. [Neutral]

6. What are other reasons that you like to use bitcoin?
I control my assets. With banks your assets can be manipulated, withheld, or seized, all without legitimacy and in circumstances that often leave the individual with little or no recourse. Bitcoin solves this similar to cash, but in a digital form.

7. How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
I like that bitcoin functions similarly to the gold standard. [Strongly agree]
I like that bitcoin is not a government-issued currency. [Strongly agree]
I like that bitcoin is democratic. [N/A]
I like that bitcoin is decentralized and part of the open source software movement. [Strongly agree]

8. Do you use bitcoin for anonymous purposes?
No

9. Do you think bitcoin helps maintain your anonymity?
No

10. Why or why not?
Participating in most Bitcoin market activities create circumstances where true anonymity takes significant effort. Those who believe Bitcoin is anonymous are also likely to make the mistake of thinking there cash purchases are not traceable, when in fact the means of tracking an individual are sophisticated enough (e.g. I make a cash purchase at the grocery store. My cell phone has recorded my movements. The camera in store has recorded my face. And the sales database has recorded my purchase. All of these will have time stamps that make correlation easy.) that one is not truly anonymous when scrutinized. At best Bitcoin is anonymous to large corporations because they do not yet have their hooks into the dominant transaction services.

11. Which websites or resources do you use to learn about bitcoin news?
bitcoin.org
bitcoincharts.com
bitcointalk.org

12. How do you communicate with others about bitcoin?
BitcoinTalk (Bitcoin Forum)
In person conversations

13. Why do you talk to other people about bitcoin?
Economies are as strong as their number of active participants.

14. Have you ever written a blog post, essay, or article about bitcoin?
No, never.

15. Have you ever made changes to the bitcoin code?
No, and I have no interest in doing so.

16. Have you ever been involved with a bitcoin improvement proposal? If you are comfortable doing so, please explain your involvement.
N/A

17. What are your feelings on the Bitcoin Foundation and other major bitcoin organizations?
I respect the effort they put into lowering the barrier to entry for new adopters. They are acting out of market interest, tinted with desire to level the playing field against entrenched financial interests.

18. What do you like about bitcoin?
Due to the nature of the technological foundation of Bitcoin, neither the currency nor the market can be manipulated by a central authority whose legitimacy may be questionable.

19. What do you dislike about bitcoin?
About Bitcoin itself, nothing. Many people will answer this question in reference to the circumstances surrounding Bitcoin, such as the technical hurdles, difficulty to buy in, and lack of goods and services available.

20. What do you think the future holds for bitcoin?
Bitcoin will always exist as a value store, like gold. Since the average person is incapable of comprehending fractions (e.g. no one pays for goods in 1/10 ounce of gold) and the entrenched powers will want to control the flow of commodities with a finite amount (e.g. gold, land) we will not see popular adoption of Bitcoin.

21. Which political outlooks best describe you? Please select one or more.
Left-wing
Libertarian
Moderate
Right-wing

22. Please describe your political views in a short sentence.
Measured against the times, people, and environment.

23. What is your view on government regulation of bitcoin? (This question is not referring to any specific government.)
Regulation is a form of control. Given that Bitcoin has the potential to shift control from entrenched, centralized interests, it is natural that government will be prompted by those interests to control Bitcoin.

30. What is the highest level of school you have completed or the highest degree you have received?
Bachelor degree

31. What country do you live in?
United States

32. In what state or U.S. territory do you live?
[No answer]

33. Please share any additional comments or questions you have in the box below.
Bitcoin is less of a big deal than it is being made out to be. The thing that replaces Bitcoin, whatever that may be (assuming it can overcome the inherent advantage of large miners), will be a force to be reckoned with.

[clustig]

I am interested in seeing other peoples responses to Caitie Lustig's survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bitcoinsurvey). She is a graduate student researching the Bitcoin community, not market (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=308727.msg3311237#msg3311237). Her request appears genuine. Like most academic research this will probably go nowhere, but I do think it is a good summary of other questions asked here occasionally. So if you are inclined, copy all or some of the questions and answers, and share them here. Thanks.

Ms. Lustig,
I hope you share the results of your survey and a link to the full paper produced.

Hi, imperial--I just sent you a PM, but again, thanks for promoting my survey!  Once I have the survey is closed, I'll do some analysis of the results, and come back and post my preliminary findings here.  I'll also be sure to link to any publications that I get out of this research.

[ralree]

Did it.  Took 10 minutes.  Totally worth it.  I think with good answers, this study could look rather positive for bitcoin.

[TheButterZone]

I hate open-ended questions! Went almost entirely multiple-choice and left boxes empty.

[waqas]

going to try this hope this will help to us and all of community I recomend more peoples try to enter in this survey 

[knight22]

I just did it

[ReBoRn]

I have no problem done this good for all of us any one can do this just in 10 minutes 

[mccoyspace]

I did the survey.

[OleOle]

I did the survey.

Yep, me too. Pretty good survey, doesn't take long at all.

Go on, take the survey, you know you want to

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I's takith da survey. She'll never know it was me.  I did answer to the best of my ability, considering I havith a rod in me head.

[illpoet]

surveys yay!

[clustig]

To everyone who's been posting in this thread: thanks for doing the survey and for promoting it!  It's been exciting to see the number of responses go up through the day.

Also regarding the open ended questions: I know they're not everyone's cup of tea.  I'm really excited to analyze the results of those questions, but I know that not everyone is going to do them and that's okay.  I just appreciate that people are taking the survey and answering as many questions as they are comfortable with.

[clustig]

Not a bad survey at all  How are you working to overcome the responder bias? With the disconnected nature of bitcoin I do realize that is a pretty hard problem.

Thanks!  If I understand your question correctly, you're correct.  I'm sure there's large groups of bitcoin users that I'm missing by only posting my survey on bitcointalk and /r/bitcoin, which are my main sites of research.  I'll be supplementing my findings from the survey with interviews, hanging out in forms, reading blogs, and hopefully attending some bitcoin events IRL. While I'll really only be able to make claims about the communities of bitcointalk and /r/bitcoin, my focus is on the community aspect of bitcoin, and as far as I am aware this and /r/bitcoin are two of the largest, if not the largest, bitcoin communities online.

If you meant responder bias in terms of people not answering questions entirely truthfully in an attempt to make the researcher happy, I think the same answer more or less applies.  By sticking around here and talking with a number of people, I should get a good feel for the community.

I am also taking great care to protect the anonymity of my participants and am trying to very transparent about what I am doing to protect people's privacy.  So I hope that helps people feel more comfortable with talking to me.

Does this answer your question or did I misunderstand you?

[phillipsjk]

As I said in the additional comment section, some question are awkward for me because I have not actually spent any Bitcoin yet. However, I have been following Bitcoin for years.

You should post your survey also on Reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/

Did you fail to read the previous post?

[howzar]

Completed it! Lets see what the analysis results say about BitCoins .

[BitChick]

I completed it.  I figured they might want some female input. Probably not too many females filling the form out.

I had a hard time choosing my political angle though.  I took this survey a friend posted online a few days ago http://www.politicalcompass.org/ and found out I am way more libertarian than I thought! I guess just owning Bitcoin should have told me that!   I always thought I leaned towards the right-wing.  I said "Moderate." 

[dddbtc]

Everyone should take this survey.  It will show that we all aren't dread pirate roberts or "nerds" that mine bitcoins instead of talking to girls or criminal money launderers.

[BitChick]

Everyone should take this survey.  It will show that we all aren't dread pirate roberts or "nerds" that mine bitcoins instead of talking to girls or criminal money launderers.

Not nerds?  That might be a stretch.     Oh, you meant too nerdy to even talk to girls.  I am not sure if the survey will completely determine that answer. 

I would love to see the results though.