Over half of UK shoppers are aware of Bitcoin, yet only 5% have actually made transactions with the virtual currency, according to survey results from communications agency Clarity.
57% of the over 2000 online shoppers surveyed had heard of Bitcoin to be precise, with awareness numbers higher among men (69%) than women (45%), according to the research.
Not surprisingly figures for actual use favoured men too, with 7% compared to 2%; these figures included the whole gamut of virtual currencies, from Bitcoin to Dogecoin and even Litecoin.
Interestingly fewer than one in five (18%) said they would consider using the technology in future, citing a lack of trust in the product. A further quarter (24%) was neither here nor there, which Clarity puts down to a lack of understanding.
It was this lack of comprehension in how Bitcoins worked which was the most popular pain point according to respondents. 63% of those polled cited this, followed by 53% who were worried they had no experience of them
A similar number (52%) cited security concerns as their biggest fear, followed by a lack of trust in the protocol (43%) and 29% who were unsure of Bitcoins’ legality.
This reticence among UK consumers might not be so curious given Bitcoin’s precarious position in the press.
Last week it was reported that online marketplace Silk Road 2 had lost $2.7m (£1.61m) in Bitcoins because of an alleged hack. Similarly, trading arena Mt.Gox went down last week, blaming a bug which “makes it possible for someone to use the Bitcoin network to alter transaction details to make it seem like a sending of Bitcoins to a Bitcoin wallet did not occur when infact it did occur.”
The reaction to this has been less than sedate, with Eileen Brown declaring today in ZDNet that “the Bitcoin bubble seems about to burst.”
Yet this isn’t the only viewpoint. TechCrunch notes that while Mt.Gox “implodes” the rest of the Bitcoin community is “surprisingly stable”, while in its leader the Washington Post compares the situation to the dot-com bubble bursting.
“The flood of capital into the Internet economy and the subsequent shakeout was terrible for investors, but it probably accelerated the Internet’s development,” Timothy B. Lee wrote, adding: “Out of the chaos emerged enduring companies like Yahoo, Google, Amazon and eBay.”
Whether history repeats itself here is another matter, but if the latest consumer perception results are anything to go by, it’ll take a turnaround of this kind before Bitcoins are used widespread.
