Bitcoin Users Match Stereotype, But Are Wealthier, Adopt Later, Than Thought

By John Stewart

The digital currency Bitcoin has attracted plenty of headlines, and has even gained enough of a foothold economically to prompt regulation, with the state of New York introducing the first BitLicense last week. But while the Bitcoin concept may be spreading its wings, the Bitcoin user base remains more or less true to an early stereotype of the young, white male with techie proclivities.

Indeed, just about 60% of Bitcoin users are under the age of 34, with nearly 40% in the 25-to-34 age bracket, according to research released Wednesday by Coindesk, a U.K.-based digital-currency researcher and news service. And a whopping majority—more than 90%—is male, according to the report, entitled, “Who Really Uses Bitcoin?”

As for race, 65.8% of surveyed users identified themselves as white, with “Asian” coming in second, says a summary of the report released by Coindesk.

The release says the dominance of men among the Bitcoin community comes despite efforts to encourage more women to adopt the currency, including the “Bitcoin Women’s Day” event celebrated March 8 in conjunction with International Women’s Day, an online campaign to promote the achievements of women.

However, in a surprising result, Bitcoin users turn out to be somewhat well off despite their relative youth, according to the survey. Nearly 47% of users have household incomes of $50,000 or more, with 22.2% reporting an income of $100,000 or greater. Nearly 11% of the respondents preferred not to disclose income.

And users may not be quite the early adopters many assume them to be. Some three quarters of them took up the currency after May 2013, with one-third adopting it just in the past year. Bitcoin was invented in 2009.

Coindesk says its surveys for the report have what it calls “limitations.” Almost 4,000 respondents replied to four surveys presented in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and English, but most responses came from North America and Europe. That could have skewed the results, Coindesk says. The Chinese survey, for example, “received comparatively few responses, though there are known to be many cryptocurrency users in the region,” says the release. “We have not weighted the results to compensate for this imbalance, but present the findings of the survey as-is.”

All told, 49.85% of responses came from North America, 32.99% from Europe, and 9.36% from Asia, according to the release.

Coindesk is selling its report for $99, and yes, it is accepting Bitcoin.