https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/san2018-23.pdfWhy do people own Bitcoin?
An important question in studying Bitcoin and other digital currencies is why people own
Bitcoin. The answer to this has implications for central banks as issuers of cash and as they
research the costs and benefits of central-bank-issued digital currencies (see, e.g. Engert and
Fung (2017)). The 2017 BTCOS aimed to delve a bit deeper into this question by asking how
often owners used their Bitcoin for two purposes: to pay for goods and services and to send
money to other people. For this section, we make the distinction between transactors—those
who used Bitcoin for one of these purposes at least once per year—and non-transactors—
those who used Bitcoin at most “once or twice, but not on a regular basis.” Bitcoin owners
were split roughly evenly between the two groups, with transactors and non-transactors each
making up about half the population.
If half of Bitcoin owners do not use it to transact, there must be other reasons to hold
it. To investigate this, the BTCOS asked Bitcoin owners to choose their main reason for
owning it from a predetermined list (Table 3a). In 2017, the driving motivation for Bitcoin
owners was to hold it “as an investment,” with 58 per cent of owners choosing this response.
In second place was “My friends own Bitcoin” at 12 per cent, and the other response options
were all below 10 per cent. These reasons provide an explanation for the large number of
non-transactors, who overwhelmingly held Bitcoin as an investment (77 per cent) compared
with transactors (38 per cent). Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin transactors stated that they own
it to buy goods/services on the Internet (12 per cent), but also because their friends own
it (11 per cent) and it is a cost-saving technology (11 per cent). Therefore, a minority of
respondents are using Bitcoin for transactions.
The Bank Of Canada wanted to know what were the reasons for ownership during the rise in Bitcoin prices. The Canadian number aware of bitcoin increased by 20 percent during 2017. And now, 85% of Canadian citizens are aware of Bitcoin
- 12% own Bitcoin because their friends own it
- 58% use it as an investment
So the majority is just holding and a minority really uses it as a currency