Questions around whether or not cryptocurrency can become a mainstream payment option have circulated since crypto first emerged and has found mixed results, a survey conducted by Cloudbet questioned a wide demographic to discover what the general public thought of the change, and what could prevent a more mainstream approach for crypto.
The answers may come as something as a surprise across all markets, however, as what’s typically expected did not match the respondents’ views. Infrastructure received the fewest number of responses across all markets, for German respondents for example it received just 5.57% of responses as the least likely to be a reason why cryptocurrency could not become mainstream. Volatility and Accessibility were also of little concern at just 6.44% and 6.81% respectively too, which comes as a surprise as the volatility of the market and the lack of options for new investors to access Bitcoin in particular have long been considered drawbacks.
The top responses did see a difference between markets, however, as Spanish, German, and Italian respondents all suggested that legislation and control would be the biggest reason why Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency would struggle to achieve mainstream usage, where as UK respondents instead suggested that Knowledge & Understanding of cryptocurrency could hold it back instead with 33.03% of respondents putting this at the top, with legislation and control receiving just 27.28%.
Responses filtered by gender once again show quite the dramatic difference too – for the same UK respondents when filtered by answers from the female audience, infrastructure and volatility were considered to be the lowest of concern at 8.42% and 17.11% respectively, but when filtered for male respondents’ infrastructure still remained at the lowest of concern with 11.36% of respondents, but volatility rose towards the top with 28.31% showing a large disparity once again.
From the survey results it’s clear to see that whilst there are some age groups in different countries throughout Europe that are well aware of the current state of crypto and have support for the change, there’s still a large disparity between those that follow news around bitcoin and cryptocurrency or understand any of the current concerns in the market. Efforts are being made to educate as mainstream news outlets have increased coverage over the past couple of years, but as no large business have been willing to commit to officially supporting the bigger coins following Tesla’s small Bitcoin experiment, it may be some time until major change is made.
For now, crypto still remains on the fringe as just an investor option with options to use it as a payment few and far between, but there could be plenty of options in the future if the issues are ironed out and if the general public can get more onboard with the potential changes.
