A new study performed by Chilean researches hopes to understand the financial aptitude of Chilean citizens. Specifically, the study wanted to see how many people knew about cryptocurrencies. The study, coordinated by the Financial Knowledge Index (ICF) and the Central Securities Depository (DCV) is the first of its kind in Chile.
The results of the study might were interesting – revealing that 39% of participants have never heard of cryptocurrencies at all. The gender breakdown of this question is perhaps unsurprising given crypto’s general gender breakdown: 51% of chilean men have heard of cryptocurrency, while only 27% of women have.
Across age demographics, younger people proved more knowledgeable about cryptocurrencies: 43% of subjects aged 18-34 have heard of cryptocurrencies, which is close to the 42% of those aged 35-54 who know of cryptocurrency.
The statistics drop off after age 55. Only 30% of the test subjects over age 55 have heard of cryptocurrency.
Another factor measured was socioeconomic status. Of those that are familiar with cryptocurrency, 75% of them came from high resource classes (25% from lower resource groups).
The study also attempted to measure Chilean financial proficiency of the overall markets, not just cryptocurrency. The research included a pool to measure how well their subjects understand financial institutions, products, and general concepts. The results showed that 53% of subjects have low knowledge, 31% are average, and only 16% qualify as having “high level knowledge” of the financial markets.
Very Different From USA
This results of the study stand in stark contrast to research done in the United States. Studies done by Clovr earlier this month have shown that 76% of Americans know what cryptocurrency, while earlier studies indicate that 79% of Americans know what cryptocurrency is.
A key takeaway from these findings is that as popular as cryptocurrency has become, it’s still yet to achieve mainstream penetration. Large groups of the population don’t even know what cryptocurrency is, and as shown by other studies, an even lower proportion of these people actually own cryptocurrency. In one study, only 9% of those aware of cryptocurrency have actually purchased any. This data again underscores how far the industry has to go to truly breach the mainstream.
