Grayscale Investments, one of the leading investment firms in the cryptocurrency market, has released results from a survey indicating that the interest in Bitcoin has increased since the global pandemic.
Increased: Bitcoin attention in the past year
According to the survey report, the spike in investor interest in cryptocurrency and Bitcoin from 2019 has been significant. As per the report:
“Interest is on the rise: More than half of U.S. investors are interested in investing in Bitcoin. In 2020, more than half (55%) of survey respondents expressed interest in Bitcoin investment products. This marks a significant increase from the 36% of investors who said they were interested in 2019.”
Bitcoin adoption spurred by the pandemic
The findings from the research, which saw 1,000 US consumers surveyed, suggested that a majority of adoption towards investing in Bitcoin has increased in the past four months. Because of the US economy struggling to maintain any stability, it appears that Bitcoin has become a safe-haven hedge against the dollar. Grayscale’s report states that, over the past four months, respondents have taken Bitcoin into consideration as a direct response to the global Coronavirus pandemic. The report explained that a significant 63% of the respondents who had recently added Bitcoin to their portfolios did so as a result of the pandemic. 39% of the respondents found Bitcoin a more appealing asset since the pandemic hit.
“According to respondents, Bitcoin appears to share some attributes with safe-haven investments. Bitcoin’s scarcity, verifiable nature, lack of correlation to global markets, and the fact that it isn’t controlled by government organizations are attributes that make Bitcoin similar to traditional safe-haven investments.”
Bitcoin tending towards mainstream acceptance
The survey researched how familiar investors are with Bitcoin now compared to last year. According to the results, there seems to be a sharp incline in those who know about the digital asset now. As Bitcoin gains interest, it seems to be gaining investor’s attention too.
“While initially thought of as a niche asset class that appealed to a narrow pool of investors, digital currencies are gaining momentum as a mainstream investment opportunity. Based on this year’s survey, the market of potential Bitcoin investors is 32 million strong—compared to 21 million investors just one year ago. This year, 62% of investors reported that they are “familiar” with Bitcoin, compared to 53% in 2019.”
If investors, especially large-scale as well as institutional, start to view the cryptocurrency industry as one which can hedge against the dollar and store safely, mainstream adoption might well be on its way soon. Should this happen, the market might be in for the bull rally cryptocurrency analysts are predicting.