Majority of Bitcoin Users Trust Decentralized Crypto Wallets Over Coinbase: Survey
Store digital assets in crypto wallets. | Credit: Shutterstock
By CCN.com: In a relatively small survey of 200 people, MyCrypto.com and Ambo, a mobile blockchain company it recently acquired , made some interesting discoveries. The survey covered 200 consumers in the US and found that more than half of them had used crypto to purchase goods or services.
More interesting than that, about the same percentage reported using mobile wallets to manage their crypto assets. Among the same people, only 37% use mobile wallets to manage non-crypto assets.
Over 66% of respondents use noncustodial wallets. So the majority of the people polled either understand the importance of decentralization or choose not to trust folks like Coinbase to hold their assets. That finding is probably the most encouraging.
MyCrypto itself offers a noncustodial service, which allows the user to quickly generate an Ethereum wallet. MyCrypto’s founder Taylor Monahan previously worked for MyEtherWallet, one of the most popular and most accessible solutions for creating an Ethereum wallet.
“19.5% of people use mobile apps for investing money and non-crypto assets while 15% use mobile apps for investing crypto daily. Signaling a near parallel in usage.”
MyCrypto’s one-page report on the results of the survey opines that usability remains a considerable problem for cryptocurrency.
“One of the biggest narratives behind the power of cryptocurrency is about creating a global economy, but we’re not even close to that yet. While new and casual users face a large variety of barriers, the biggest one that we haven’t even tackled is that casual customers have no idea how to even use it.”
MyCrypto is one of many companies dedicated to the cause of making crypto easier. Perhaps the most ambitious effort is the FIO Foundation and its associated protocol, which aims to bring cryptocurrency to the masses by making it safer and easier to use.
At the same time, some believe that crypto is intended to be a store of value, so usability of the thing is far less critical than its security. MyCrypto argues that both are important:
“While it appears that crypto applications are alive and well, 46% of those surveyed see crypto as a long-term investment which allows us to concur that from a mobile app and money management standpoint there is room to grow in the development of wallet security that promotes long-term protection.”
It’s the season of crypto statistics, with a recent report finding that the majority of crypto exchange users come from the United States.
Another report from Blockchain Capital, which some have contested, found that around 11% of Americans currently own cryptocurrency, while awareness had risen in the extreme.
Is cryptocurrency just a few usability enhancements away from mass adoption? We won’t know until the improvements have come about.
The other side of that argument would be that cryptocurrency will never see mass adoption unless it becomes so superior as to be indispensable. Or, perhaps more likely, cryptocurrency will see mass adoption when the existing systems become so unreliable that people are essentially forced to use it. In many ways, the spike in Venezuelan adoption spells that out.
