[2019-03-08] 73% of UK Consumers Say They Don’t Know What Cryptocurrency Is

[Lucius]

73% of UK Consumers Say They Don’t Know What Cryptocurrency Is

Seventy-three percent of U.K. consumers don’t know what a cryptocurrency is or are unable to define it, according to a new survey from the country’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Announced Thursday, the research indicates that those who are most aware of cryptocurrencies are likely to be men aged between 20 and 44.

The survey, which polled 2,132 British consumers in association with London-based market research firm Kantar TNS, further found that only 3 percent of those surveyed had ever bought cryptocurrencies.

https://www.coindesk.com/73-of-uk-consumers-say-they-dont-know-what-cryptocurrency-is-fca-survey


For me personally quite astonishing information, given the fact that it is one of the most developed countries in the world or in top 5 largest world economy. I assume the information is available to people, but maybe UK media is not forcing too much things which are related to cryptocurrency? Is it factor of relatively favorable financial security in the world's top countries reason why people are not overly interested is something like bitcoin?

Data shows that UK have 200+ crypto ATMs at this moment, and it is on 4 place by number of ATMs in the world.

[btyco]

It depends on where they do the survey. If it's in county situated in the countryside then it sounds about right, but if the stats were collected in the city then it's completely wrong

[stompix]

For me personally quite astonishing information, given the fact that it is one of the most developed countries in the world or in top 5 largest world economy. I assume the information is available to people, but maybe UK media is not forcing too much things which are related to cryptocurrency?

You're spending too much time with people that are interested in cryptos and you take your experience as granted for everybody.

Now seriously, if we make a serious poll in the alt section a lot of people that are posting here have no real understanding of what crypto is or how BTC works.I got tired of replying to tens of accounts during the fee war that were sure adding more miners to the network will make tx faster .

The average person doesn't know what cryptos are, the average person doesn't know how to install an OS on a laptop, the average person goes to a service when taping something just once is not working on its smartphone.

Just how people that play Wow or Pubg are amazed you don't, just how some are thinking you're trolling them when you say you don't have a fb or tw account, it's the same for us who are used to cryptos.
For example, my parents or my wife have never used PP or bought something from Amazon, do you think they are calling each other with smoke signals? 


I think those numbers are far more real than those surveys with 17% Turks and 15% Romanians owning some crypto.

[figmentofmyass]

73% of UK Consumers Say They Don’t Know What Cryptocurrency Is

Seventy-three percent of U.K. consumers don’t know what a cryptocurrency is or are unable to define it, according to a new survey from the country’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

that sounds right to me. my sense is that most people have heard of bitcoin once or a few times before, but they have no idea what it is or how it fundamentally works.

in contrast, i'd venture to guess that a good deal of people who actually take the time and effort to learn about cryptocurrencies end up investing in them. that's why i think some of the numbers i've seen, like ~5% of people in developed countries like the USA owning crypto, are fairly realistic.

[joniboini]

I'm also quite surprised by this. Well I think most people already heard about crypto (or Bitcoin), but 73% not knowing it is quite surprising. Seem like it doesn't matter what kind of country you are, a majority of the people don't know about Bitcoin at all. Even in my country, the customer of the most used exchange are only around 1% from total population. Seems we've got a long way to go for mainstream adoption.

[Kakmakr]

I am not too surprised by this study, because I live in a country that has a equal mix between 1st world and 3rd world people and the most common statement that I get, when I mention Bitcoin is mostly, "What is Bitcoin?"

I am even surrounded with tech savvy young people and a lot of them have never even heard about Bitcoin or any other Crypto currency for that matter. We need more word of mouth advertising from the price watchers that are just waiting for the price to recover. Some organized and well funded marketing Bitcoin campaigns can also be crowd funded by all these hoarders.     

[Lucius]

Maybe this information is misleading, it depend who they ask in survey, but it show that majority of users who know something about cryptocurrency are between 20-44 years old men. So younger or oldest people (women) do not care too much for something like bitcoin, and I think there is reasons for that.

Young people usually are not burdened with real life problems, most of them just study, have fun and their parents pay for their life. Only later in life some of them start thinking about how to ensure better financial security, and some of them will find bitcoin as much more desirable investment then buying stocks or just keep money in bank. People above 45 or 50 years of life probably have no interest in anything new, they do not want or just do not understand how cryptocurrency works.

After all if people do not understand something, they will not use it - and if they not use something this is not good for that product or service. In any case more awareness that something good is out there would certainly help with more adaptation of cryptocurrency.

[Betwrong]

UK with its 3 percent of those who had ever bought cryptocurrencies is ahead of the most of the world in this regard. According to this research, that I'm inclined to trust, there are around 25 million Bitcoin users globally, which amounts to less than 0.5% of the world population. We are still far off from the mass adoption, although I personally don't think that people should understand how things work to be able to use them. Do people know how smartphones work?

[senin]

73% of UK Consumers Say They Don’t Know What Cryptocurrency Is

Seventy-three percent of U.K. consumers don’t know what a cryptocurrency is or are unable to define it, according to a new survey from the country’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Announced Thursday, the research indicates that those who are most aware of cryptocurrencies are likely to be men aged between 20 and 44.

The survey, which polled 2,132 British consumers in association with London-based market research firm Kantar TNS, further found that only 3 percent of those surveyed had ever bought cryptocurrencies.

https://www.coindesk.com/73-of-uk-consumers-say-they-dont-know-what-cryptocurrency-is-fca-survey


For me personally quite astonishing information, given the fact that it is one of the most developed countries in the world or in top 5 largest world economy. I assume the information is available to people, but maybe UK media is not forcing too much things which are related to cryptocurrency? Is it factor of relatively favorable financial security in the world's top countries reason why people are not overly interested is something like bitcoin?

Data shows that UK have 200+ crypto ATMs at this moment, and it is on 4 place by number of ATMs in the world.

It is necessary to take into account the mentality of people in this state. The British have always been famous for their conservatism. They are not inclined to change, especially in the field of finance. In addition, it is a country with a high standard of living. Therefore, they, unlike the population of third world countries, do not rush to make a living in a cryptocurrency. Therefore, I am not surprised by such low activity of people in relation to cryptocurrency.

[NeuroticFish]

I find the news of low quality, they missed (with intention or not) some interesting points from the original report.

First miss: they've asked only the 16+ brits. It's important, since I expect more 14-16 y.o. know about this than 60+

Second: "Nearly three in four of those surveyed hadn’t heard of cryptocurrencies or were unable to define what they are correctly." The fact you cannot define properly what's that is different from not hearing about them. Quite misleading imho. The "never heard of it" is 58% which sounds more "normal".

Also it depends on how the question looked like. Many may have heard of Bitcoin, but not about cryptocurrencies (tough word for many).


Imho these things should clearly be there in a news article in a crypto-focused newspaper.

[veleten]

I find the news of low quality, they missed (with intention or not) some interesting points from the original report.

First miss: they've asked only the 16+ brits. It's important, since I expect more 14-16 y.o. know about this than 60+

Second: "Nearly three in four of those surveyed hadn’t heard of cryptocurrencies or were unable to define what they are correctly." The fact you cannot define properly what's that is different from not hearing about them. Quite misleading imho. The "never heard of it" is 58% which sounds more "normal".

Also it depends on how the question looked like. Many may have heard of Bitcoin, but not about cryptocurrencies (tough word for many).


Imho these things should clearly be there in a news article in a crypto-focused newspaper.

I tend to not pay too much attention to the polls like that since they depend on both how you ask the questions and who you ask the questions
same question , as mentioned above , "have you heard of it" results in a 50% + - , which is way more accurate IMHO
once I asked my friends and relatives , out of interest , if they knew what bitcoin was and 90% of them said that they heard about it
when I tried to get them explain what bitcoin was , only about 20% were able to , rest could not
once bitcoin is out there, in everyday's lifes and on TV (more than now) I expect the figures to be much higher

[gentlemand]

For me personally quite astonishing information, given the fact that it is one of the most developed countries in the world or in top 5 largest world economy. I assume the information is available to people, but maybe UK media is not forcing too much things which are related to cryptocurrency? Is it factor of relatively favorable financial security in the world's top countries reason why people are not overly interested is something like bitcoin?

Data shows that UK have 200+ crypto ATMs at this moment, and it is on 4 place by number of ATMs in the world.

Until very recently there was no exchange in the UK. You had to wire money to some fuckhole bank in Eastern Europe or do P2P. No crypto business could keep a bank account in the UK. They still can't unless they're Coinbase. Britain's way behind compared to the US and plenty of other countries.

Coinbase implemented the first domestic banking for the first time long after the bubble pop.

3% seems far, far too high to me. That's nearly two million people. I'd be impressed if it was a fifth or a tenth of that. I've only ever met or overheard one person in the wild talking about it.

[1Referee]

We are still far off from the mass adoption, although I personally don't think that people should understand how things work to be able to use them. Do people know how smartphones work?

Spot on. It all comes down to how easy something is to use. Give people an easy to understand app that looks good, and people use Bitcoin without any problems. For real, what functions other than send and receive will most average people use anyway? It can't be that hard to figure out how to do that, the rest is pretty much irrelevant.

The only thing that does somewhat concern me is how to make it easier for people to take security and offline backup of seeds joe-ready. If you mess up with centralized payment services, you are very likely going to get your money back. If you mess up with Bitcoin, you're pretty much toasted.

In the end, owning Bitcoin isn't something serious people like to talk about. If someone I don't know asks me if I own Bitcoin, I'm more inclined to say no.

[Theb]

Found this map chart on another news article showing the spread of where the 2,132 people where surveyed and it comes to no surprise that London and most of the Eastern regions are the ones who have successfully defined what cryptocurrencies are as they also have the most number of Bitcoin ATMs available in the country. Although the numbers aren't impressively high this might be brought up due to a lot of factors involving their government and crypto related businesses not being highly active on spreading the industry unlike how countries like Japan and Korea do it with their citizens.

[pixie85]

It shows how early we got in. When you feel like you're not an early adopter think of this survey.

I don't see anything special about it until there's a survey made for every other EU country for us to be able to compare them.
When I talk to people I feel like they heard of it but have no idea what it is. Some say that it's some Internet collectible or something like loyalty points.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Spot on. It all comes down to how easy something is to use. Give people an easy to understand app that looks good, and people use Bitcoin without any problems.

The more detailed study report (which you can find here: https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/research/cryptoassets-ownership-attitudes-uk-consumer-survey-research-report.pdf) pretty much agrees with you. The reasons for not buying included "lack of knowledge on how cryptocurrencies work" at 23%, "lack of knowledge on how to buy" at 20%, and "too difficult or complex to buy" at 8%. The only reason listed higher was that it is too risky to buy cryptocurrencies due to price fluctuations.

It shows how early we got in. When you feel like you're not an early adopter think of this survey.

With the 3% who had bought cryptocurrencies, around half had already sold, and of the remaining population only 7% said they were thinking about buying in the future. There's still a long way to go yet.

[Lanatsa]

It shows how early we got in. When you feel like you're not an early adopter think of this survey.

I don't see anything special about it until there's a survey made for every other EU country for us to be able to compare them.
When I talk to people I feel like they heard of it but have no idea what it is. Some say that it's some Internet collectible or something like loyalty points.

Thats why we are still lucky to know this kind of privilege earlier compared to them but overall its already 10 years passed but they havent still known about crypto
but well its never been too late to know about crypto and it isnt really that hard to understand on what it is all about. 73% doesnt know about crypto and i doubt there
would be still some countries or places which do have more.

[davis196]

This survey proves that nothing changed in the last 3 years,in terms of overall awareness regarding cryptocurrencies.What would be the bitcoin price if this persentage decreased to 50 or even 30%?
More awareness means that a part of the people,who know and understand what crypto is,might eventually buy some coins.

[BitHodler]

it isnt really that hard to understand on what it is all about.

It actually is. Currently the market is so saturated with altcoins, that people don't care about decentralization, and they probably never have in the first place, but only about what ICO project is the next one to invest in.

From a community focused on decentralization we have gone to a community focused on gains. It doesn't matter how trashy a certain project is, all people care about are how hard something can pump. Sad reality.

[hatshepsut93]

Do you guys think this is good or bad for Bitcoin? On one hand it means that there is still a lot of room for adoption by new users, on the other hand, it's a sign that even after 10 years Bitcoin remains in obscurity and struggles to achieve the mass adoption that many people seem to be waiting for. I personally even stopped believing that Bitcoin will ever be widely popular, and I think it will exist as a niche product for people who care about its values. It's similar to many other software, like OS's or browsers, where majority of the people uses corporate solutions even though they violate user privacy, while only a minority uses free and open source products.