Watch Out Bears, Crypto’s Only Getting Started: Coinbase CTO
July 13, 2018 @ 13:52 +03:00
Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan ignited a Twitter firestorm yesterday when he tweeted that while 63% of the world’s adults own smartphones, only 8% of those in the U.S. and less than 1% worldwide own cryptocurrency, indicating there is a potential user base that is 60 times larger than the existing user base. Some agreed that these numbers indicate the crypto market is more inevitable than many think. One tweeter went as far as to say that it makes sense for people to hold onto their cryptoassets for the long term.
Many, however, questioned the accuracy of the 8% cryptocurrency ownership, as well as Srinivasan’s opinion about smartphone ownership’s relationship to cryptocurrency adoption. The original tweet linked to a story about a Finder survey of 2,001 Americans that found just less than 8% of Americans have purchased a cryptocurrency.
The Finder survey in itself offered some interesting insight into Americans’ attitudes about cryptocurrency. Among those who have not purchased it, just 7.76% plan to in the future. Reasons given for not purchasing it include having no interest, thinking it’s too risky, finding it too hard to understand and thinking it’s a scam. In addition, some said they are waiting for a bubble to burst, others think crypto is too hard to use, and some believe there are too many fees to pay.