According to a recent survey, one in every six Australians now owns cryptocurrencies, with the entire value of their holdings totalling $8 billion and Bitcoin also being the most popular cryptocurrency in the country.
On September 2, the full report of the Finder Consumer Sentiment Tracker was made available online. Qualtrics conducts a monthly continuous poll of 1000 nationally representative Australians.
With 9 percent of Australians holding Bitcoin, it is the most popular cryptocurrency in the country. According to the survey, almost 8% of Australians possess Ethereum, 5% own Dogecoin, and 4% of the population owns Bitcoin Cash.
Researchers were startled to learn that 35% of respondents believe Bitcoin will be used more widely than traditional currency in the future, implying that one in every three Australians believes Bitcoin will replace fiat currency by 2050.
The percentage of Gen Z respondents who believe in Bitcoin has risen to 52 percent. Furthermore, 50% of all respondents believe Bitcoin is a genuine investment.
Men were twice as likely as women to hold cryptocurrency (23 percent vs. 11 percent). Women, on the other hand, are benefiting from the trend, with 7 percent of women already possessing cryptocurrency, compared to 29 percent of men in January.
The majority of respondents who stated that they owned cryptocurrencies stated that they did so to diversify their investments (30 percent ).
One-quarter of Australian hodlers (24%) said they bought crypto just “because it’s going up.” This is a decrease from January’s figure of 45 percent.
Around 49% of those polled have no interest in crypto at all, stating that “nothing would make me want to invest in cryptocurrency,” while 32% of crypto skeptics said they would “rather purchase shares or have money in savings.”
Overall, the volatility and perceived risk of crypto is the largest disincentive to purchasing it. Surprisingly, males were more hesitant to buy crypto than women (50 percent vs. 37 percent), according to the survey.
The complexity of knowing how crypto works is another huge barrier to entry for Australians. When asked if they would invest in cryptocurrencies if they understood how it all worked, 28% said yes, while 18% said yes if they knew how to really invest in it.
The findings of Finder’s research were highlighted earlier this year when it was shown that 56% of Australians believe Tesla CEO Elon Musk is the Bitcoin founder.
The survey also shows how global social media influencers affect crypto sentiment. More than half of Australians (52%) obtain their news from social media sites such as Twitter, which is home to many bitcoin industry influencers.
