To Bitcoin or Not To Bitcoin; Exploring Consumer Perceptions

The aim of this paper is to examine whether demographic variables (age, gender, education) relate or affect the choice of purchasing Bitcoins by focusing on the demographic profiling of people. This research also investigates the reasons why people purchase Bitcoin and the reason why people don't want to purchase Bitcoin or other crypto currencies. On that the study focuses on answering the following questions: (i) Do demographic characteristics affect the choice of purchasing Bitcoin?, (ii) What are the reasons why people purchase Bitcoin?, and (iii) What are the reasons why people don't want to purchase Bitcoin? Data were collected through a distributed questionnaire and further crosstabulated using SPSS. Results reveal that the main reasons for not purchasing Bitcoins are higher risk, fluctuating price, and lack of adequate information on how the crypto currency system works; further, those purchasing Bitcoins do it for long term investment purposes. Out of the demographic variables, gender, age and education level significantly affect the choice of investing in crypto currencies.