As far as public awareness, the latest published poll, coming from the UK, shows that 72% of the people has heard of Bitcoin.
http://www.digitalcurrencycouncil.com/professional/the-bitcoin-barometer-a-study-of-sentiment-in-the-uk-toward-bitcoin/It's a very limited survey: quota-based sampling, weighted by census, online interviews with 527 “nationally representative adults aged 18+” conducted by Reputation Leaders Ltd. and likely obtained from an MROC. So that's n=527 from a population of 70000000+ and, because the sampling is quota-based, no estimate of sampling error is possible.
Following the latest trend in survey methods, it basically canvasses respondents' views of other people's perceptions --- which is what you'll get from answers to the question “how do you view the reputation of these payment systems ...” and so, when interpreting the results, you also have to bear in mind the context in which these reputations have been acquired, a context which, for instance, includes these loaded phrases used by the British Daily Mail ...
“If you are a computer genius you could make money by creating Bitcoins through 'data-mining.'”
“troubled bitcoin digital currency”
“the crisis-ridden bitcoin currency”
“as Bitcoin lurched from one disaster to another”
“Speculative investors have jumped into the bitcoin fray, ...”
The survey reporting hints at conflicts of interests. Reputation Leaders sell reputation action services to the commercial providers in the market that they are surveying. There are clear hints with “nearly a quarter of Brits say Bitcoin has a fair to very bad reputation” (13% say "very good/excellent"). The collapse of “fair” and “very bad” obscures just what percentage said it had a “very bad” reputation - which could be as low as 0.00000001% or as high as 23.99999%.
And there's an elephant ... “if you were seeking professional advice on bitcoin, which of the following individuals would you speak to”
Someone certified by the ... DCC
A financial advisor
An accountant
A lawyer.
The DCC are the “Digital Currency Council” a New York-based
web site outfit striving for credibility and whose regulatory remit (should they manage to achieve one) cannot cross the pond so the rationale for referencing a nascent US-based voluntary standards org in a UK-facing survey is a puzzle ... unless the survey is another example of the increasingly popular trend to exploit interest in low-power surveys to serve as a promotional clothes horse --- in this instance, for the DCC. That would explain the unlikely inclusion.
Cheers
Graham
Edit, added URL