I'm taking your survey, but I wanted to point out to you that one of your survey questions has a VERY big bias.
Specifically
Question #8 asks:
"Cryptocurrencies first coin was ____"
And provides the following choices:
This question fails to recognize the existence of many earlier cryptocurrencies such as:
- eCash (David Chaum, 1983)
- eGold (Dr. Douglas Jackson & Barry Downey, 1996)
- Hashcash (Adam Back, 1997)
- BitGold (Nick Szabo, 1998)
- B-Money (Wei Dai, 1998)
Note also that your question is phrased as if the word "Cryptocurrencies" is a possessive noun describing ownership of the "first coin", but uses the plural form of the noun. As such, it isn't clear exactly what you're trying to ask there. It's a bit like having the phrase "Mice first mouse was ___"
Additionally, that same question asks for the year that "Cryptocurrencies first coin" was "introduced in". While Satoshi released, in a particular year, his Whitepaper describing a concept very similar to what would eventually become Bitcoin the "first coin" didn't exist until a later year when the software was finally available. That "first coin" had significant differences in functionality compared to the earlier Whitepaper.
Furthermore, I see an issue with
Question #9In this question you ask for a definition of "mining", but none of your provided answers are technically 100% accurate for Bitcoin. I chose the one that I felt comes closest to being accurate, but "mining" has different meanings for each cryptocurrency so without identifying a specific cryptocurrency, none of the options provided can be completely accurate.
Question #10 also seems to have some bias included in the way it is phrased. In addition to the explicit bias in the question, you provide answers that can be sometimes true and sometimes false depending on the situation and then ask for which are "true". Always true? Mostly true? Usually true? Occassionally true? Can ever be true? Which is it?
Both
Question #11 and
Question #12 ask about
THE crypto regulations, as if there is a specific set of regulations you are asking about, but you never explain which regulations those are?
Question #14 asks about an amount "invested" in cryptocurrency, but the values provided are all in £. Many (maybe even most?) of the users on this form do not use British Pounds as their local currency. Are you expecting every respondent to know the conversion rate between their currency and yours? Are you expecting them to all go search the internet and look up that conversion rate?
Is it even an "investment" if I just hold some cryptocurrency so that I have it available to spend on things I want to buy?
Are you asking about the initial amount spent to acquire the cryptocurrency in the first place, or are you asking about the current value of that cryptocurrency? Please explain to me how much has been "invested in the following situation:
- Someone spent £400 to acquire some cryptocurrency
- After some time they exchanged that cryptocurrency for £900
- After some more time they spent £500 on cryptocurrency
- The current value of their cryptocurrency is £9,000
Did they invest:
- Their initial acquisition £400?
- The sum of their 2 acquisitions (£400 + £500) £900?
- Their initial acquisition minus their realized profit (£400 - £400) £0?
- Their most recent acquisition £500?
- The current value of their current holdings £9,000
Did you even have an advisor review these questions before you made your survey public? If so, did that advisor know anything about Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, or how to create an unbiased survey?
Assuming you are working with an advisor on this, please speak with your advisor about whether the confusing word choices and lack of accurate response options will have any impact on the validity of these questions in your dissertation.
