Original Article: Carol Li Translation: Amy Tsai
Graphic Designer : Tina Shen Editor：Tong Bee, April Cho
When Bitcoin’s price suddenly surged to $20,000 in 2018, the coin’s abrupt price fluctuation caught the public eye and became a popular topic among those involved in investment circles. In the same year, the underlying technology under Bitcoin—blockchain—was selected as the International Chinese Word of the Year 2018.
These events led PANews to probe further into the question: do people still enter the bear market of blockchain and cryptocurrencies? Who are the major buyers of cryptocurrencies? Have people born after 2000 started to buy these cryptocurrencies?
To answer all these questions, PANews launched an extensive project which surveyed 4980 subjects and resulted in 4200 effective samples.
Quick Facts:
98.22% of the surveyed subjects have heard about cryptocurrencies
63% do not think cryptocurrencies should be a valid payment method
People born in the late-90s are the main investors in Bitcoin, but those born after 2000 have more potential to become big customers
Investing in cryptocurrencies does not mean that the investors have higher risk tolerances
40% of the subjects are willing to invest in cryptocurrencies in the future.
98.22% of the Subjects Have Heard about Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin
Only 75 of 4200 surveyed subjects in China had never heard about either cryptocurrencies or blockchain, representing just 1.78% of the total sample. It is important to note, however, that cryptocurrencies and blockchain are prevalent in China; Overall, 98.22% of the subjects have heard about these concepts.
In addition, 50% of the aforementioned 4200 subjects had heard about cryptocurrencies, digital currencies, or Bitcoins. While 42% of these subjects had heard about blockchain, only 22.2% had heard about token and 14.6% about tung-jeng (通证: token in Chinese). In general, it seems that while subjects may possess limited knowledge about cryptocurrencies and blockchain they do not fully understand more industry specific jargon like Token.
While 1777 subjects claimed to know about blockchain technology, only 372 of them considered themselves proficient in the subject matter. Most people have very limited knowledge and some have never heard about it.
People Born in the Mid-90s are Most Well-Informed About Blockchain
According to the age distribution of the survey results, people born after 1995 appear to be the most knowledgeable: 68.37% of them either fully or somewhat understand blockchain. The generation after the 1990’s comes in second at 59.4%. Surprisingly, at 48% the people born after 2000 seem to be the least familiar with the idea.
14.24% Invested in Cyptocurrency and 82.81% Consider it a “Trendy” Investment
What is noteworthy is that the majority of people have heard about cryptocurrencies in general instead of just Bitcoin alone. Compared to the early days of cryptocurrency, the public has an increased knowledge about the cryptocurrency industry, and understand Bitcoin to be an independent concept from cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency as a type of an investment may have been a key contribution to the public’s more prevalent knowledge about the topic. 3478 people, or 82.81% of the subjects, considered buying cryptocurrencies a trendy investment. This explains that cryptocurrency is deemed as a new investment option compared with more traditional investments like stocks or bonds.
According to the results, 598 people (14.24%) have invested in cryptocurrencies. Most of them have attained a certain level of knowledge about cryptocurrencies. Only 17 people possess zero understanding and only 103 people know nothing about cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin. These two groups together represented only 20.07%. Almost 80% of the rest of the investors knew of some other major cryptocurrencies like ETH and EOS. Half of these people knew more minor cryptocurrencies. This suggests that Chinese investors have a decent knowledge about the market.
Thought Leaders and Personal Networks in Cryptocurrency Awareness
Internet celebrities and community forums are the main outlets where the subjects are exposed to cryptocurrencies. This is how 1595 people (37.98%) learned about cryptocurrencies the first time, followed by 1090 people (25.95%) who were exposed through friends and family. The result illustrates that opinion leaders and close relationships play an important part in cryptocurrency transmission. In addition, the fact that the public often get information about cryptocurrencies from community forums implies their receptiveness to the idea.
Satoshi Nakamoto defines Bitcoin as a person-to-person electronic cash payment system in his white paper. “Payment” is deemed as the original intention of cryptocurrencies. However, in China where mobile payments are convenient, 63.43% subjects thought it unnecessary to use cryptocurrencies as a payment method, showing that promoting cryptocurrencies as a payment method in China may not be feasible.
What is noteworthy is that cryptocurrencies will enhance financial activities efficiency in cross-border settlement. Siyin Chen, the Head of China Fintech Program of Plug and Play, once stated that blockchain could eliminate intermediaries in value transmission as it does not require message verification and could realize real-time settlements.
People Born Post- 1990 Are Primary Adopters and Most Entered Market After 2017
According to the survey, 598 people (14.24%) have invested in cryptocurrencies. Among them, the population born after 1990, are the major investors in cryptocurrencies in China, which include 362 people, or 60.54%.
However, people born after 2000s have the most potential compared to other ages. The cryptocurrency investors in this group represent 16.36% of all cryptocurrency investors and 19.74% of the experienced investors. These two percentages are the highest in each category among all age groups. Though the tendency does not imply any statistical relevance, it demonstrates that experienced investors born after 2000 may invest more in cryptocurrencies.
Interestingly, most people born in the 80s, 90s, and mid-90s only have 10k to 100k RMB investable assets, yet 153 people of the most potential 00s have less than 10k RMB, having the least investable assets of all ages. According to the results, futures is the most popular investment option among people with less than 10k of investable assets. These findings imply that the less investable assets one has, the higher risks they are willing to accept. This reflects cryptocurrency’s price fluctuation and perhaps explains the popularity of cryptocurrencies among people born in 2000s.
Most investors started to buy cryptocurrencies after 2017. 232 people entered the market between 2017 to March 2018 when the market trend seemed bullish. This suggests that bull market can indeed attract more investors. After March, although the price dropped, 164 people still bought cryptocurrencies.
For purchasing methods, 410 of 598 (68.56%) cryptocurrency buyers bought it from exchange, followed by airdrop and mining at 266 and 263 people, respectively. While people who get cryptocurrencies from mining are not minorities, it does not mean that there are many miners as some may think that transactions or possession alone is an act of mining. Moreover, the difficulty for an individual to mine major cryptocurrencies with mining machines has also increased.
High profits also mean high risks in investing in cryptocurrencies. Do cryptocurrency investors prefer taking higher risks? Not necessarily, according to the PANews results. 598 people currently invest in cryptocurrencies. 334, 314 and 286 of them also invest in stocks, funds and savings, respectively, while only 249 and 179 people invest in financial products with higher risks like futures and future currencies.
40% of Survey Subjects Are Considering an Investment in Cryptocurrencies
Even though only 596 people have invested in cryptocurrencies, 1665 people (39.64%) say they will invest in cryptocurrencies if they have additional assets in the future, making cryptocurrencies the third most popular option after real estates and stocks, outnumbering other financial products like foreign currency, saving and insurance. In general, Chinese people are willing to invest in cryptocurrencies in the future.
The willingness has something to do with media accounts, yet media is not the direct influencing factor. While there is some news about realizing financial freedom by investing in cryptocurrencies, the media has limited impact on the purchase of cryptocurrencies. 60.67% of the subjects would start learning and speculating cryptocurrencies after watching similar news, yet 28.55% say that the news does not impact their decisions.
What keeps the investors from entering the market? 58.85% consider the wallet or transaction method is too complicated. Price fluctuations and regulation concerns are also important factors, representing 2078 and 1710 people, respectively.
