In early 2013, I conducted a survey to understand the Bitcoin community’s demographics, motivations, and usage patterns. The survey was created on February 12, 2013, using Google Docs and shared across platforms like Bitcointalk.org, Reddit, Twitter, and Google+.
This broad dissemination led to its reposting on various Bitcoin-related sites, significantly increasing its reach.
As responses accumulated, I shared preliminary findings on my blog after receiving 102 and 533 responses, respectively. These updates generated further interest, encouraging more participation.
The survey was closed on April 4, 2013, after collecting 1,087 responses. At this point, I cleaned the data to ensure accuracy, removing incomplete or inconsistent entries, resulting in a dataset of 1,000 responses for analysis.
Key Findings:
- Demographics:
- Age: Predominantly individuals in their 20s and 30s.
- Gender: Approximately 90-95% male respondents.
- Geography: Majority from North America and Europe, indicating limited global reach at the time.
- Motivations for Adoption:
- Interest in decentralization and financial privacy.
- Philosophical alignment with libertarian values.
- Speculative investment, anticipating future value appreciation.
- Usage Patterns:
- Utilization for peer-to-peer transactions and online purchases, especially for niche services and digital goods.
- A tendency to hold (HODL) Bitcoin, expecting its value to increase over time.
- Challenges Faced:
- Technical complexities in using Bitcoin wallets and conducting transactions.
- Lack of widespread awareness and understanding of Bitcoin.
- Price volatility causing uncertainty among users and merchants.
- Security concerns, including risks of hacking and wallet theft.
This survey provides a snapshot of the early Bitcoin community, highlighting the enthusiasm and challenges during its nascent stage. The insights gained can inform future studies and the ongoing development of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Analysis of Data
Demographics of Bitcoin part 1 – covering the basics
What do people actually buy with Bitcoins?
Raw Data
The survey itself is here.
The “live” and most raw version of the data is here.
Cleaned Data
The cleaned version of the data, still relatively raw (maybe medium rare) with 1,000 responses is here.
Responses which gave a range (“300-500″) were converted to a mean figure (“400″).
Responses which gave a limit figure (“less than 100″, “500+”) were converted to the limit figure (100, 500).
I deleted anyone who had left four “major blanks,” ie they had not responded to four simple, short, numerical/multiple choice questions which applied to everybody.
I deleted anyone who left the age or gender field blank.
I tried to removed highly erroneous answers. There was relatively little trolling in the survey, but there was some. Sometimes I had to make a judgement call, such as with the Russian who claimed to have over a million bitcoins, or the 13-year-old Shinto girl in Angola.
After all that cleaning, there were 1,011 responses left, so for the sake of clean percentages I used the first 1,000.
