Topic: Block Report: Bitcoin: Knowledge and Perceptions (Read 429 times)

I get what you are saying. Just be aware that Bitcoin is a complicated subject, which involves many difficult topics. Not everyone can be expert in every aspect. Monetary theory, cryptography, distributed computing, game theory are only of the few aspects one has to masters: so don’t expect everyone gets what you understand well.

I believe that is probably people who do not know details about bitcoin, not the people who never heard of it. I mean I get it, there is a good case to be made about the situation that would make it look like its people who never heard about it, but I just feel like majority of the people heard about it already, at least 70-80%+ of the people "heard" about it.

However, if we look at people who know what a blockchain is, that drops down a lot, and if we ask about decentralization? That’s even lower. Hence, I believe that if we take it even just a smidge of down into details, there are still majority of the people who do not know about those things.

It never hit me like that though. You buy fractions of lots in stock markets, you also buy fractions of gold (who the hell could afford an ounce as a first time buyer anyway), don't know why people saw Bitcoin differently, but I guess it's just because people see the whole BTC price everywhere and it doesn't occur you can buy parts of it. Or as you say, they feel like they're getting in early on a lowcap coin, waiting for the x100 dream.

Seriously mate? 51% do not know anything about crypto currency? That got my attention. In the world where bitcoin or bitcoin related stuff is always in talks, whether it’s our friends, schools and colleges, news, share market world the bitcoin word occurs everywhere these days.

Who are these peeps who does not know anything about bitcoin at all. I’m really surprised about this. Or does the peeps who fall in 51% are all from the worlds those corner where digitalisation is still unattended or awareness is still far from Internet. Definitely interesting topic to discuss further.

Over the years, I've tried to explain Bitcoin to many people, and unfortunately I've found that very few people eventually understand what you're talking about. If you try to explain to someone in the simplest and most objective way possible what Bitcoin is and how it works, and that person tells you that it is all a big scam, then we can conclude that some people simply refuse to accept knowledge for some reason.

From my personal experience, I could conclude that such negative attitudes can stem from the attitudes of local institutions such as central banks or various financial agencies that systematically send negative information to the public and thus certainly influence a lot of people to create a negative attitude towards Bitcoin.

If we take into account that most people in every country are blind followers of the system, I would wonder if the biggest obstacle is ignorance or fear of a system that has very effective ways to shape public opinion?

Same here, when I was a newbie I also think that btc is too expensive that is why I didn't buy it but later on I figured out that btc can be divided in smaller portions and you can also buy it this way. I think this was still included on the knowledge part, the op discussing about.

There are also people that knows that they can buy btc in factions but they still think that they can earn more on a much lighter coin because they can buy millions of it at a much cheaper cost. Btc/cryptos are not a secret anymore and many women are also involved because they know that they can earn an income if they invest and trade it. Most of them are from the third world country where the state of living is poor.

In developing countries the number of unbanked population is very high and these citizens need alternative source of payment. Around 57% of the population of Africa, around 95 million people, do not have a traditional bank account. This high number of unbanked people undoubtedly causes problems, as there are limited economic options to serve its citizens. Considering the benefits of the use of Bitcoin many people would be willing to adopt it. But they are hindered by government policies, infrastructural deficit and religious misconceptions. These challenges have greatly affected the spread of Bitcoin enlightenment and acceptance in these countries.The government must give the populance the options of using other currencies without restrictions. This would aid in the spread of the acceptance of Bitcoin. Infrastructural amenities like internet facilities and electric supply would be a big advantage in the quest of educating people about Bitcoin.

https://thefintechtimes.com/top-african-challenger-banks-helping-the-unbanked-through-mobile-services/

Not sure you understood the report or what I was quoting. It doesn't say anything like that at all.

Also, past data agrees the opposite is true about women. They're far less risk averse than men, which is why they are fewer women "investing" in Bitcoin.

However, according to this report, they see themselves as more knowledgeable and more open to utility-based knowledge -- as opposed to men who are more interested in it as a speculation/investment/moneymaking venture.

I'm curious, how many of those people who said that lack of knowledge is the main reason to not buy Bitcoin are going to actually put their time and learn about it. Because on one hand, it seems like there's a large pool of people who could become new buyers and thus push the price higher, on the other - those people might actually continue ignoring Bitcoin.

The "knowledge feeds optimism" basically is another fancy way of saying "if you know what bitcoin is all about, you would buy it, because if you know it, then you know it will go up". Basically anyone who understands bitcoin knows that they should invest asap. This is a good report, I highly support it, it is quite good to know that bitcoin is something that should be loved, and supported by others that say the same thing as well.

Knowledge is more valuable than money, if you know the right things, then you will never need money ever again in your life, but knowledge without a use is not a good thing, so you should know things that will benefit you, not useless facts.

The reason why women have higher percentage than men because they are more willing to take high risks. They are better prepare to lose anything they have when invested their money in Bitcoin. We all know that Bitcoin is really high risk investment, even men made long consideration to decide invest Bitcoin, but it doesn't apply to the women. The long process or consideration on men's mind made women become one step ahead, and that really makes sense when the data show us the fact.

Other than lack of knowledge I do think the technological problems that are always there for specific communities are a big challenge since they usually fail to integrate into the society dominated by fiat and my parents, think it's so volatile that they will lose everything in a matter of seconds which again might be dependent on your cognitive thinking about bitcoins, for me I do believe that it would go to the moon again and very soon as well, but again it's not a hindrance for traders so calling it just a currency might not be taking into consideration it's full potential as an asset, investment, trading tool, it's an active currency for sure and we will be seeing many reports in the future about them.

Interesting for me is a top reason is "it's too expensive" and that's also my personal experience, why people go buy shitcoins like Ripple instead of BTC, they don't get you can buy fractions of, and unit price feels too expensive for them.

Also... outside the Americas, more women than men think they know more about Bitcoin. Pretty unexpected.

Actually you're wrong.
If there would be lower volatility then the small traders will no longer earn so much (may no longer worth it) and the investors will earn steadily (even the faint hearted ones).
If there would be no volatility at all (which is probably not possible because of Bitcoin scarcity) then people would earn from loaning, like they do with fiat now.

So no matter what, people would keep getting profits. Just it will be different people and/or different ways, that's all.

I would just separate possession and use as two different categories when it comes to Bitcoin. Consequently, I have no doubt that at some point 10% of the world's population will own Bitcoin, but those who will try to use it as a currency will be much smaller, as is the case today. Some kind of absolute adaptation is something that will probably never happen, no matter how simple things are. Some people have very negative attitudes towards Bitcoin, and they find it difficult or never to change their attitudes.

The major problem Bitcoin is having is the that many countries have not taking it seriously so that it will not jeopardize individual economy status. Their are countries that had ban Bitcoin because of the threat it pose on currency of most countries. The restriction of Bitcoin in many countries had been because of fear of dumping fiat currency of such country because Bitcoin is currently serving as an investment and also a means of digital currency.


https://www.bitcanuck.ca/blog/crypto-blog-canada/bitcoin-status-worldwide/

Due to the volatility of Bitcoin many investors had considered it as a good investment just like other financial instruments.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LivingOnBitcoin/comments/7amkn9/how_many_people_are_using_bitcoin_by_country_map/

The problem is not that it is difficult to get information about bitcoin in our time, but that people may not have the desire to look for this information and the most common laziness.

I think many will agree with me that people are different: Some, with their diligence, get what they want, be it information or something material. Others, even with all the possibilities, for example, the presence of internet and access to info about bitcoin, under no circumstances do even minimal actions to study info about it. Therefore, it seems to me that in the form that bitcoin now exists, never 100 % of the world's population will not use it. This will require greatly simplifying everything for the benefit of users (as suggested by Square, for example), but the question is whether bitcoin will remain the same after that.

You also correctly noticed that many people don't physically have access to internet. Of course, with the development of technology, their number is decreasing, but still, not so fast due to hard-to-reach locations. I would also like to draw attention to the level of PC proficiency and the lack of it. Even now, when a PC is relatively cheap, not everyone has it, which also prevents bitcoin's spread. You can also add those people who have a PC at their disposal, but the level of ownership of this still doesn't allow them to start recognizing and using bitcoin. Although the widespread use of smartphones may partly compensate for this, but you understand that this is a completely different level of security and safety of funds.

In the case of Nigeria placing a Ban on Bitcoin,  the government has never come up to say that Religion made them not to accept bitcoin in the country, their claim has been their inability to regulate and control bitcoin and bitcoin-related activities in the country.  Religion has nothing to do with the bitcoin ban in Nigeria I think the main reason is because Nigerians saw the change that bitcoin will bring to her economy but her leaders felt her citizens will be liberated from financial dependency should bitcoin be accepted in Nigeria.

I totally agree with Block Inc report that lack of knowledge is the biggest problem of bitcoin adoption. In the case of Nigeria, based on local geographic metrics,Delta, Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, and Enugu states rank as the top five states with the highest interest in Bitcoin in Nigeria. And these states are located in the Southern part of the country which has a higher number of literates than the Northern part. The Southern part of the country is the hub of Bitcoin transactions because most people there are enlightened and understands the complexities of Bitcoin operations.  

The Northern part of Nigeria has the highest number of Muslims and some of them still practice the Sharia law. Most of them don't have interest in modernization hence, they reject any form of payments that they perceive promotes  Westernization. Like other Islamic countries the northern region is not accepting Bitcoin because of religious beliefs. While the Southern part are mostly Christians that have embraced Western cultures. This has affected their openness to accept alternate means of payment such as Bitcoin.



    

The fact that information exists online means absolutely nothing if the average person cannot understand it - and we see that at least 50% have admitted indirectly that they do not understand Bitcoin no matter how someone tries to explain it to them. You may be unaware (though not relevant to the topic) that 40% of the world's population still does not have access to the Internet...



If we look at the fact that Bitcoin has turned into a speculative asset from its original idea, then it all comes down to profit, right? You are a classic example of someone looking at it from that angle, at least judging by what you wrote. For consolation you are not alone in this, most are willing to sell in the end, it is just a question of at what price.

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Panama and the CAR have only recently (each in their own way) got into the Bitcoin story and may not have been able to be in this survey - and El Salvador for some reason was not interesting to the US-based research company. But for some reason they were interested in China, which they included in this research - although we know that China is the most hostile of all countries to Bitcoin.

In this case it is true, ignorance makes everything different and indeed this spreads in another direction as a result of this ignorance.
when we see there is actually a relationship between one and the other because in this case if we look at there "Don't know enough about it" this is indirectly related to Too much price volatility, Too expensive, Don't know how to buy it.
On the other hand, this ignorance clearly creates a wrong perception, namely The environmental impact is too high, It's too much of a long term investment. even though if we look at it actually Environmental impact is too high is a classic reason that was made up from the start and too much long term investment is the same reason because they don't know that in just 1 decade bitcoin has reached a price of $69k ath.

But on the other hand I like this word


this is an undeniable fact and indeed the more they learn and the more they know about bitcoin, the more optimistic we are to be there because we already know that being here is not in vain

I enjoyed reading this BTC Report that the Block has. They have discussed several topics that answer these questions below.

• Why do people choose Bitcoin for an equitable economy?
• What is needed for more adoption?
• Why is Bitcoin the top cryptocurrency?

I've learned that people are using it for investment reasons compared to utility reasons. The comparison between the different income groups has shown that it's all about the belief in the system. I think I see the importance of the people with lower incomes choosing it because they believe in its actual use, unlike the higher income groups that are using it entirely for investment reasons like diversification of their assets.

Having no gender divide also is being discussed in the report, and it's pretty good to see that it's not anywhere affected by that. I mean, why should it matter anyway? We should all be equal.

More and more people have always seen cryptocurrency as something that could potentially help people's lives. Still, for that to happen, I agree that education about it would serve the best purpose towards having a better cryptocurrency experience for everyone.

this is a quite truth about bitcoin adoption limiting factors and the extent to how many people would have believe in bitcoin potentiality and role in the economy but they chose the other side due to the fact that they lack the reality knowledge of what bitcoin is and how it can be use to benefit their investment asset in adoption, this is a reality as well in real life that man is totally in dark of what it lacks knowledge about, our government could have been a major role player in this regards but they turn deaf ears due to bitcoin decentralization and regulation challenges.

Let's consider countries that has highest number of bitcoin optimists as listed from OP above, we could see how the adoption is vast increasing daily in those countries predominantly among the young adults (youths), why is because they see bitcoin as a game changer for their long anticipated solution for privacy, decentralization, trust and financial independency, our government give less to the society but expect much to come out from it, aside being a good store of asset value which bitcoin is, it has also created many employment opportunities, hunger and poverty alleviation through trading and  investments.

Now we could see how the remaining world population could have jumped to adoption of bitcoin it they truly understand what a digital decentralized currency called bitcoin is, and this is the same reason why some have make it through in bitcoin while others remains low, timid and poor because they lack how to engage the use of bitcoin, but nevertheless adoption still continues and the role and value of bitcoin as a means for payment remains valid as long as it remains being used for an exchange of commodity and monetary value.

Don't know enough about Bitcoin, and the ways of securing it will likely be our biggest obstacle. Users here like to talk about scalability, and various other limitations to the code, but those can definitely be reworked. However, I don't see enough work being done towards simplifying Bitcoin so that the general public can just pick it up like fiat.

Now, I do understand that this is partly a unrealistic expectations, since securing Bitcoin is always going to be complex, especially if you aren't relying on a third party. I imagine in years to come we'll start seeing banks or the equivalent of banks which will offer to secure your Bitcoin for you, which could actually increase adoption. However, this breaks one of the golden rules for many of us, and one of the reasons why Bitcoin is unique, and revolutionary. It allows you to be your own bank, which is brilliant for us that do our due diligence, and don't mind being responsible. However, not everyone will be comfortable with that.

Lets face it, how many people in the general public break security rules all the time. I would say the vast majority do. People in my family have such weak passwords that I would be able to guess in under an hour. I know that, since I've done it before to prove a point. Yet, they still didn't change it to a more complex one. How many people write passwords down, right next to their computer for example? At that point there's no point even having a password.

I've been saying this for a while now, and I do believe there's others that are in support of it. I don't think the concept of Bitcoin is at fault, it's generally how uneducated we are as people about security. I'd love to say I had a solution to this, but I really don't. We can simplify the wallets, Bitcoin to a certain extent, but there's a ceiling to that.

Hardware wallets are something that has changed the game a little bit. They've provided a way for people to use Bitcoin without knowing much about securing it. They just trust the device. This is all well, and good, but the only problem with that is trying to convince these people to use open source hardware wallets, and acknowledge there are still risks of using them. As the saying goes, complacency is one's worst enemy.

If the statistics are to be believed in the OP, they agree with me. Over 80% of people don't go into Bitcoin because of not understanding i.e Bitcoin being too complex or not knowing how to secure their Bitcoin. That's our mass adoption right there gone, and therefore is the biggest stumbling block. I believe every other problem we might have, can be solved given time, and adoption. The more people that come into Bitcoin, the more urgency there is to solve any other superficial problem, and then we'll have even more people lending a hand to solve it.  

For example, too expensive or don't know how to buy can be solved. The more demand, the more exchanges, the easier it becomes to buy. However, for it to be considered to expensive is baffling to me, since you can buy any denomination you want, but convincing the public of that will be a little more difficult. I imagine, we won't be using 1 Bitcoin in the future, but talking in Satoshi's. That way, it removes the idea that 1 Bitcoin is too expensive, since most people I talk to have an obsession with whole numbers, and owning that 1 Bitcoin. It's like they think holding anything less, isn't worth holding. It's a weird problem, that will likely be overcome with some terminology changes.


The reason for this is, because I would deem us in either the early bird catagory, i.e early adopter or the speculative investor period. It isn't ready to be a main use currency right now, although it can be used as one, it isn't as enticing as other options for people.

Yeah, that's a concern for many. However, if we look at the recent war with Russia, and the West you'll see that many people had trouble withdrawing their fiat money. So, this isn't exclusive to Bitcoin. However, I will admit that's a concern.

Yeah, directly correlates with number one.

This is the most difficult one to answer. At the moment, we're very environment friendly, and every company has to appear green. It's an actual selling point now if your company is doing things green. Now, I think the Bitcoin argument of us using too much energy is unfounded, but we should probably be thinking about ways of improving it regardless. The only problem with this accusation is it's hard to prove, and hard to disapprove, but as soon as people hear it, that's what they believe.

Therefore, it's not a problem of proving otherwise, it's convincing the general public that it's not true, which is a lot harder.

Hmm, it really only becomes an advantage if you're a speculative trader. If you are receiving your monthly wage in Bitcoin, you ideally don't want that to be going up, and down. Especially, if you're using it as a currency, and not a reserve currency.

Some people already live pay check to pay check, so adding some volatility into the mix, isn't good. As long as massive amounts of volatility exist, Bitcoin will not be adopted by the masses. Luckily for us, Bitcoin is naturally deflationary, and the block rewards reduce at given intervals, which effectively introduce volatility i.e Bitcoin should in theory get less volatility the longer it exists.

Edward Bernays basically taught us to not limit people's choices by outright stopping them from using it, as they'll feel suppressed, and will rebel. Instead, convince them they've a choice, and basically release propaganda about the options that don't work into their favour. So, yeah I'd say it's common psychology for people rebelling when outright being limited.  

That seems like good research, with a high number of respondents and interesting questions. I'm surprised that utility reasons to buy Bitcoin scored so high. But it makes sense that people with low income can't afford investing into Bitcoin and waiting for value to grow because they don't have enough to invest to make a meaningful change in their lives.
It's also good that people with limited knowledge aren't likely to purchase Bitcoin, as buying something you don't understand can lead to making big mistakes and being negatively surprised by some things.
I only hope that the research will continue and cover some other countries as well, so that we can get a fuller picture of perceptions around the world.

So the most friendly Bitcoin countries e.g. El Salvador, Central African Republic and Panama didn't appeared on the report? How it's possible since both of El Salvador and Central African Republic is already accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender, while Panama they have proposed to accept Bitcoin as legal tender, though the Panama's president fail to sign the crypto bill, but the top Panama's banks is Bitcoin friendly. I guess accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender doesn't need a huge holders or demand from the citizens, but the government can do it yourself whether they want or not.

This proving Bitcoin isn't expensive and can only be used as investment to protect against inflation, but people with lower incomes can still buy Bitcoin and use it as a currency. I don't know how much they consider a low incomes, but most exchange usually charge ridiculous fee and a transaction fee to send Bitcoin to another wallet cost you around $0.5-$1, how can the low income people survive from that? My assumption they're using Lightning network since the fees is really cheaper, but there's no survey about lightning network on the report.

This is interesting report because Nigeria, India and Argentina banks are against Bitcoin, they will freeze any funds that linked with Bitcoin activities. But those countries are the highest rates of optimism of trusting Bitcoin. I guess since it's high optimism by the citizens, it seems they're mostly hold Bitcoin and in hope their banks will allow Bitcoin activities. It's hard for them to convert Bitcoin to fiat, since they can only use that as a gift card. Using P2P or decentralized exchange still need to link your bank account.

This also because they have a high inflation on their countries, so they view Bitcoin as a bright way for protect against inflation. But of course, they shouldn't put their eggs in one basket and diversify with other assets e.g. gold, stock, etc to prevent from the risk. Even Bitcoin is high likely become the best investment, but there's no guarantee about it.

I thought there's a reason the citizens doesn't want to buy Bitcoin because of their religion, because many country that ban of using Bitcoin is mainly about religion especially on the Middle East country.

I'm more surprised about this statistic



On both EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and APAC (Asia-Pacific) regions, women are more expert among her friends and her familiy, this mean many women out there are really understand about Bitcoin and technology. I thought it's otherwise because female seems doesn't want to touch anything that technical or technology related due to hard to understand.

It's just sad how after 13-14 years Bitcoin has been existed, there's still a good amount people still never heard about Bitcoin word.

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I would like to answer the reasons to not buy Bitcoin based on my own opinion


Doesn't make sense, look at the history.

This is the most bad reason since they're prefer to buy shitcoins over Bitcoin.

I still can't believe that in this era, people are difficult to update their information about something like Bitcoin although the are too many sources to get the information. For me, they don't brave to buy Bitcoin because of FUDs besides don't understand what Bitcoin is. Once people read the FUDs, next they are only looking for more information about the FUDs. So, they actually get more misleading information about Bitcoin because they read from the wrong sources (hater sources). 

People don't understand that the volatility even becomes an advantage. Without significant volatility, people can't gain big profits. Just imagine if BTC price is similar to the stablecoins price. How we can gain profits with no big range between top and dip.

Block published a very interesting report on Bitcoin.





It is a very interesting report, and one of the topics resonated with my thinking about bitcoin:



I guess the whole point of participating in this forum, as I said many times,, is all about knowledge.
Also, as highlighted in the report, lack of knowledge can be an obstacle in buying bitcoin, to the detriment of the part of the population that could potentially benefit the more from his adoptions:



It is very interesting to have a read on this report many aspects are considered, and I guess many topics can be discussed starting from it.