A recent survey by YouGov, an online research and analytics firm, revealed that the majority of adults in the U.S have heard of at least one cryptocurrency. The survey, which focused on awareness and interest in cryptocurrencies, questioned 1202 U.S citizens about their attitudes to the crypto-economy.
According to the results of the survey, 79% of the respondents had heard about at least one cryptocurrency.
The results from the YouGov study indicate a significant improvement in crypto awareness in the U.S, particularly considering that a similar survey conducted in December 2017 by a crypto public relations, Ditto, showed that about 70% of Americans were not familiar with cryptocurrencies. In that same survey, 90% of the 500 respondents did not know what an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) was.
Perhaps predictably, bitcoin was the most popular cryptocurrency amongst the respondents: 71% had heard of the largest cryptocurrency (by market cap).
Other cryptocurrencies were not so popular with the respondents. Ethereum (or more precisely Ether) and Litecoin, two top altcoins, were the second and third most popular cryptocurrencies. 13% of the Americans questioned knew about Ethereum while 11% were aware of Litecoin.
10% of the respondents said they had heard of Dash, a cryptocurrency with several advertisement campaigns funded with money from its treasury – 10% of all newly created Dash tokens are sent to the Dash treasury to be used for such purposes.
Significantly, as many as 87% of those who had heard about bitcoin had neither bought, sold nor mined any. 9% had bought some bitcoin before and only 5% had ever engaged in mining the cryptocurrency.
Of the respondents who were aware of bitcoin, almost half (49%) are glad they did not buy bitcoin earlier and have no intentions of doing so. Interestingly, 15% admitted that they wished they had bought some earlier but now feel it’s too late, while 3% also wished they had bought some earlier but were planning to do so.
Perceptions on Use Cases and Future Adoption
With regards to the use of cryptocurrencies for illegal activity, a fifth of the respondents believed that cryptocurrencies are equally used for both legal and illegal activities. This finding is particularly revealing given that the DEA (The US Drug and Enforcement Agency) recently reported that the true ratio is in fact roughly 9:1 in favour of legal use.
According to a quarter of respondents, cryptocurrencies are mostly used for illegal activities, but 17% thought otherwise.
The survey also revealed the respondents’ views on the adoption of cryptocurrencies within the next ten years. The results show that a quarter of the respondents think cryptocurrencies will either be widely accepted or ‘somewhat widely accepted’ in the next ten years. On the other hand, 34% were of the view that cryptocurrencies will not achieve widespread adoption in ten years.
