A survey conducted by Bloomberg indicated that only 42% knows what digital currency Bitcoin is. 12% of the individuals surveyed over the phone from December 6 to 9 thought of the virtual currency was an iPhone app or an Xbox game. The 46% of the 1,004 Americans who were interviewed by Des Moines, Iowa-based Selzer & Co with a plus or minus 3.1 percentage points margin of error said they are not sure what the term is.
According to Quartz, the 42% who recognized Bitcoin for what it is is remarkably high when compared to the number of US individuals who actually handled the virtual currency. Pointing to a Bitcoin.org post, less than a million was said to have owned the currency, and that majority of the number are outside of the US. Quartz argued in its article that the 42% recognition rate was a feat for a largely media-generated phenomenon that is the Bitcoin. It also noted that despite the number of people who had participated in the survey by Bloomberg, the sample also represented the 94% of Americans who cannot identify a single brand from China.
Despite the growing awareness of the BItcoin and the increase of investors who are putting money in the virtual currency, Quartz said in the article that the demand in the Bitcoin, following the supply and demand principle, drives its value to just under a thousand dollar in trading to date. On the other hand, the article said Bitcoin still has a long way to climb, as it has yet to obtain endorsement from a government or a central bank, much less getting regulated by a financial authority. Nonetheless, the article said that Bitcoin's growth is going to the right direction, as it is getting attraction from Silicon Valley to venture capitalists, prompting the value of the crypto-currency to keep at higher-than-estimated levels still, which would be great for early speculators.
There are others that argue that Bitcoin will be ready to burst any time soon. Quoting Boston University finance lecturer Mark Williams, Williams said that Bitcoin's market volatility could cause trading value to drop to 1% by June.
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