Actually...Bitcoin's Recognition is Pretty Darn HighA poll meant to show how few people know what Bitcoin is demonstrates just how widely Bitcoin is recognized.
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There's a lot of snickering on Twitter today about a Bloomberg poll that showed "just" 42 percent of people surveyed nationally correctly knewBitcoinwas a virtual currency. In fact,6 percent of respondentsthought it was an Xbox game or an iPhone app.
To wit...
New poll shows 6% of Americans think#Bitcoinis an Xbox game, another 6% think it's an iPhone app:http://t.co/bNqhdNqJCU(@TheAtlantic)
— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance)December 13, 2013
and...
Not everyone is on the bitcoin bandwagon. In a recent poll, 6 percent thought bitcoin = Xbox game. via@TheAtlantichttp://t.co/68ZzssCMkY
——苏珊·奥尔(@SusanOrr)December 13, 2013
But, hold on. Isn't the fact that 42 percent of people know what this new, still-emerging and admittedly little understood currency is cause for praise, not worry?
A 42-percent recognition rate is pretty high, considering the novelty of Bitcoin. Hell, Americans are notoriously short on information, despite the proliferation of devices and data at their fingertips. In 2011, Newsweek had Americanstake the test that immigrants undergo as part of citizenship. Twenty-nine percent didn't know the name of our vice president. Forty-four percent didn't know what the Bill of Rights is. As the Supreme Court was deciding whether Obamacare was actually constitutional, FindLaw.com polled Americans and found thatonly 34 percent of citizenscould name even one member of the high court.
But why do people think it might be an iPhone app or a video game? Well, because there were only three options in the poll, which talked with 1,004 American adults, over age 18. The first was virtual currency, the last was "not sure," and the two others were -- wait for it -- an Xbox game and an iPhone app. So, it's not that people actuallythinkit's a game or phone. They reallydon't know, and, presumably, didn't want to admit that so they checked the box on something plausible. (It is a sad trait that we humans tend to hide our ignorance, rather than try to eradicate it through education.)
年代o, instead of snark, the backers of Bitcoin should be throwing confetti. We know who you are, at least as much as we know Joe Biden.
