Most Americans Don’t Know What Bitcoin Is

Bloomberg surveyed a bunch of Americans and discovered that only 42% could correctly identify what bitcoin is. A small minority (12%) thought bitcoin was either an Xbox game or an iPhone app. (Scroll to the bottom of this Bloomberg page for an unintentionally hilarious pie chart depicting the results.)

However, 42% is remarkably high considering how many Americans have actually come into contact with bitcoin. No one knows how many people own any of the digital currency, but the number is probably less than 1 million, many of whom are outside the US. So a 42% recognition rate is a triumph of mindshare for what, as we’ve argued before, is a largely media-generated phenomenon. These are the same Americans of whom 94% can’t name a single Chinese brand, after all.

Read the full story at Quartz.

(Image via Flickr user antanacoins)