Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies in Our Lives: ForkLog Readers Poll Results

11.12.2016

Several weeks ago, ForkLog announced a readers poll, with 1,038 users participating. Our editorial board has summarized the readers’ answers, so that everyone could decide for themselves as to the degree of cryptocurrency integration in our lives.

Geography

Majority of our respondents, almost 90 per cent, reside in Russia and in Ukraine. Those living in Belarus or Kazakhstan are on par at 3.6%, while only 4.9% of our readers live in other countries.

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In Russia, majority of ForkLog readers reside in Moscow or Saint Petersburg, though there is a significant share of those residing in Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Sochi and other Russian cities.

In Ukraine, Kyiv takes the lead, followed by Odessa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Ternopil. Mykolaiv, Kherson and some other Ukrainian cities proved to be less active.

The list of cities shows that ‘somewhere else’ is indeed nearly anywhere around the world: ForkLog readers were found in Austria, the Baltic States, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Moldova, the United States, Uzbekistan, and even Vietnam.

What is Bitcoin?

Nearly all our readers understand what bitcoin is, with more than a half of them being quite savvy.

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Only 0.4% of those surveyed stated that they had never heard of Bitcoin before. Quite probably, some readers answered that way as a joke, but, just in case, next time we’ll ask them additional question: How come you participate in such a poll then?

Investment

Prior to diving into the investment section, it’s worth noting that nearly two thirds of those surveyed (65.9 per cent) estimate their income as average or above average (therefore, every third of those surveyed considers their income below average). We may only hope that the rest of our readers (2.1 per cent) who had selected Other estimate their income as high above average.

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We detached mining, cryptotrading, accumulation of currency, and participation in ICOs as main ways of investment in cryptoeconomy.

More than a half of those surveyed (54.9 per cent) have been involved in mining at some time, with half of them still being involved in mining.

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Some abandon mining due to a loss in the race of arms, or some negative experience in mining risky altcoins. Still, 8.1 per cent are planning to enter the industry, considering mining an additional (or even main) source of income.

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Nearly every second of those surveyed is involved in cryptotrading. Considering the previous chart, there is one miner for two cryptotraders. Still, 3.6 per cent of those surveyed selected ‘other.’

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Only 18.7 per cent of those surveyed stated they had no bitcoin savings. Still, those considering bitcoin as the main means of saving money are third less than those who invest in it moderately. Notably, there are more bitcoin investors than those who believe their income is average or above average. Therefore, at least every third of those estimating their revenue as below average still invests in bitcoin in some way.

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As for ICOs, this form of investment is not too popular so far. There are three times as much cryptotraders than those participating in an ICO. However, there are twice as much of those planning to participate in an ICO than those who plan to engage in mining. Probably, this has something to do with lower entry investment, as well as with the possibility of investing in projects that have nothing to do with mining.

Wallets

Nearly a half of those surveyed (25.3 per cent) use Blockchain.info. Considering that a number of recent failures of the service caused some users to migrate, one may assume that nearly every third cryptocurrency user was using Blockchain.info until recently. There are 7.4 per cent of those using Bitcoin Wallet, and nearly the same number (7.8 per cent) preferring Bitcoin Core, followed by Electrum, Mycelium, Jaxx, Xapo, Coinbase, Copay, Bitxfy and Cryptonator.

Wallet name – Share, %

BlockchainInfo – 25,3
Bitcoin Core – 7,8
Bitcoin wallet – 7,4
Electrum – 5,2
Mycelium – 3,9
Jaxx – 3,2
Coinbase – 3,2
Xapo – 3
Copay – 1,7
Bitxfy – 0,8
Cryptonator – 0,8

Hardware and paper wallets have garnered 2.6 per cent of votes, while 3.9 per cent of those surveyed prefer exchange accounts. One and a half per cent of those surveyed prefer some other wallet, while 8.4 per cent don’t have a wallet whatsoever.

17.6 per cent of participants named altcoin wallets (i.e. they consider an altcoin wallet their basic one.)

Payments

Two thirds of those surveyed have been using bitcoin for payments, with one third making bitcoin payments on a regular basis.

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Nearly a half of those surveyed used alternate cryptocurrencies for payments. Of those experienced in altcoin payments, 6 per cent used Dash, 2.8 per cent used Monero (those cryptocurrencies provide enhanced privacy), and 7.3 per cent used good old Litecoin.

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Two thirds of all respondents ever to use altcoins for payments (27 per cent) selected ‘Other’. We may only hope that they are not exclusively Ethereum users, and the number of altcoins used for payments at least from time, is not limited to those four considering there are at least ten coins with daily exchange turnover of upwards of $500,000.

Exchanges

Only 3.9 per cent stated they were using their exchange account as a wallet. Still, daily turnover of exchange seriously exceeds daily volumes of transactions across blockchain, so most cryptocurrencies bought at an exchange are not used for transactions, or even not withdrawn from an exchange.

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Over eighteen months that have elapsed since our previous poll, the shares of those who don’t trust exchanges and those who don’t trust them but still have to use their services did not seriously change (from 12% to 11.6%, and from 39% to 40% respectively). Therefore, the troubles similar to those of Bitfinex did not really influence the number of skeptics. Moreover, now there are twice as much of those actually trusting exchanges: now it’s almost a half of those surveyed, though eighteen months ago there had been only 24 per cent of those.

Poloniex is the exchange of choice for 35.3 per cent of those surveyed (this exchange is steadily the world’s first in terms of daily turnover). Aside from Poloniex, our readers mentioned purely altcoin exchanges, though their aggregate share is three times as little as compared to Poloniex. Those services include Bittrex (3.9%) and YoBit (6.9%). Overall share of altcoin exchanges is 46.1%, which is only 2.7% more than the share of cryptotraders.

Exchange – Share,%

Poloniex – 35,3
BTC-e – 25,7
YoBit – 6,9
Exmo – 6,5
Bittrex – 3,9
Livecoin – 3
Kraken – 2
Bitfinex – 0,9
Bitstamp – 0,9

Among bitcoin/fiat exchanges, the leader is BTC-e, which garnered more votes than Exmo, Livecoin, Kraken, Bitfinex, Bitstamp and other, less popular, exchanges (6.9 per cent) combined. Swap desks are the solution of choice for 2.2% of those surveyed, while 2.6% of the respondents prefer offline exchange using LocalBitcoins.

Some of the respondents chose Ukraine-based exchanges: BTC TRADE UA (1.3%), Kuna (1.1%), and Coinessa (0.3%). Considering 32.7 per cent of those surveyed reside in Ukraine, local exchanges have a room for growth.

Cryptocurrency’s Future

Unsurprisingly, our readers consider Ethereum the most promising altcoin: 36.9% of them have voted that way. Only 3 per cent, of twelve times as little, have voted in favor of Ethereum Classic. Enhanced-privacy altcoins proved interesting for 22.8% of those surveyed: Dash took the lead with 14.3%, with Monero (6%) and Zcash (2.5%) on the second and the third places respectively.

Well-known and marketed projects like Litecoin, Ripple and Emercoin harvested 8.8% of votes altogether (3.7 per cent, 3 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively). Nearly 4 per cent of votes went to platforms like Lisk (1.7%), Waves (1%), NXT (1%), and BitShares (0.5%). Steem and Dogecoin had 1.2% votes each. Other 24 altcoins garnered 5.6% of votes collectively.

We detached a separate category of participants apt to high risks. Their share proved to be significant: 16.1 per cent of those surveyed voted for checkered projects like OneCoin, participation in which entails high risks of loss.

The structure of opinions as to altcoin perspectives is quite different from the structure of using those altcoins for payments.

Using for payments (%) – A promising altcoin (%)

Dash: 6 – 14,3
Monero: 2,8 – 6
Litecoin: 7,3 – 3,7
Other: 27 – 76

Thus, one may assume that Dash and Monero have a room to expand their clientele, while there are twice as much of those who believe Litecoin is a promising coin than those who actually had an experience of using it. There are three times as much of those surveyed who believe in other altcoins than those who used other altcoins for payments.

In conclusion, we offered our readers to express their opinion as to bitcoin’s price by the end of the year.

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Nearly a half of those surveyed said it would be around $600, the other half believed it would be more like $1,000. Only 4.6% of the poll’s participants were downright pessimistic about the prospects for the world’s first cryptocurrency.

Thus, the most of those surveyed are optimistic. ForkLog’s editorial board thanks all the participants and hopes that their expectations prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Tags: Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, exchanges, poll