Bitcoin Knowledge and Perceptions 2023 - Block Report
In early 2023, Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) partnered with Wakefield Research for a second global bitcoin survey involving 6,600 people in 15 countries around the world.
- "Optimism about bitcoin's future has remained higher than skepticism on average."
- "We saw the most significant flights to skepticism among those who were “neither skeptical nor optimistic” about bitcoin’s future a year ago."
"Additionally, on asking people what reasons they saw as valid for purchasing bitcoin, we found that some of the most impacted responses over the past year concerned either “potential to make money” or using bitcoin as a way to “diversify investments,” with these two answer choices seeing among the most significant declines in popularity."
- "Across countries surveyed both years, the share of people who selected only money-making reasons for purchasing bitcoin fell from nearly 1 in 4 adults to 1 in 10 adults and is concentrated in countries with more developed banking infrastructure."
- "When asked about tech services they would use, 45% of respondents said they would definitely or likely choose the best functioning service, even if it meant sharing more data."
"The remaining 55% of respondents said they would definitely or likely opt for options that keep their data more private, even when functionality isn’t as good."
- "Excluding China and Vietnam, respondents in every country surveyed followed this pattern with a slight preference for tech options that maintained data privacy, even if that meant sacrificing some functionality."
- "Similarly, except for respondents in China, Japan, and the UK, the majority of people surveyed are concerned about data privacy “always” or “often.” In particular, in South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil, participants all share a high general privacy concern. This may tie to explicit discussions of privacy in their constitutions and schools, and their relatively recent histories with authoritarian regimes."
- "We also found that the share of people who only use app or web-based bank accounts instead of traditional bank accounts closely ties to the share of people who think increased financial privacy is a good reason to buy bitcoin."
- “Online attack or scam victims are 75% more likely to withhold PID information than non-victims."
- "Overall, a slim majority of adults surveyed had heard of self-custody wallets before taking the survey."
- "The survey findings suggest a very close relationship between remittances, optimism, and bitcoin engagement. Forty-five percent of respondents reported sending or receiving remittances from abroad, with Vietnam and India having the highest participation rates at 74.3% and 71.4% of households, respectively."
- "Those who engage in remittances were more likely to own bitcoin, with 8.9% reporting ownership compared to only 0.7% of respondents who don't engage in remittances."
- "Those who engaged in remittances are much more optimistic about bitcoin's future (56.2% optimistic) than those who are not engaged in remittances (27.8% optimistic)."
- "Additionally, these adults generally have higher levels of concern regarding their data privacy, with 72.4% worrying often or always about privacy compared with 54.4% from households that don’t send remittances."