Not too long ago, we published an article on the findings of a recent Bitcoin survey. Those findings were quite interesting, as most people intended to hold Bitcoin for the long haul, by the look of things. However, there are some other points from this study which deserve to be highlighted as well. It is evident things are looking quite good for the world’s leading cryptocurrency, and there is a lot of positive sentiment in the market right now.
US Bitcoin Investor Survey Part II
While it is good to see most US-based Bitcoin investors hold onto their BTC holdings for the long term, there are a lot of other questions which need to be answered. One of the obvious ones is whether people mainly hold Bitcoin or pay attention to prominent altcoins as well. After all, it is important to diversify one’s portfolio and never go all-in on one particular currency. At the same time, Bitcoin makes a much stronger investment case than most altcoins, despite the latter possibly having more growth potential.
According to the LendEDU November Bitcoin investor survey, 51.6% of Bitcoin investors have also invested in alternative cryptocurrencies. That is a rather interesting number, as most people might expect it to be a lot lower. It seems the main currencies of interest to investors are Ethereum, Ripple, and “others”. It is unclear which others those might be, although it is safe to say the top 10 cryptocurrencies are the most likely culprits. This means over 48% of the people surveyed only hold Bitcoin, which may be a bit of a risky strategy in the long run.
That is not the only remarkable trend in this survey to take note of, though. Nearly half of the respondents are quite interested in obtaining Bitcoin exposure through an exchange-traded fund. While there have been attempts at creating a licensed Bitcoin ETF, they have all fallen short. It is doubtful the SEC will ever approve such an investment vehicle unless the US suddenly decides to regulate this market in a proper and open manner. Guidelines are being drafted as we speak, but it remains to be seen if anything will come of those efforts.
Futures contracts are also quite popular among the surveyed investors, which is equally as surprising. There is still a fair amount of uncertainty regarding this investment tool, as it is not exactly something that people can manage without actively keeping tabs on how the markets evolve. One thing is certain: a lot of people are confident that Bitcoin will remain the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization in the next five years. That is only normal, as presently no other currency comes even close to threatening Bitcoin in this regard.
Perhaps the biggest concern brought up in this survey is that nearly 55% of respondents do not use physical devices to store their Bitcoin. This means they may not be using hardware wallets, computer clients, mobile apps, or even USB sticks to store their Bitcoin balances. It is evident a lot of investors will gladly keep their funds on an exchange, even though that has never been an advisable course of action whatsoever. Now would be a good time to look into more secure ways of storing one’s cryptocurrency.
Last but not least, the increasing interest from financial institutions in the Bitcoin world is perceived as a positive trend. We see banks such as Goldman Sachs embrace vehicles to expose clients to the Bitcoin price. In time, this will have a positive effect on the Bitcoin price, according to the people surveyed. Only 23.6% of respondents see this as a negative development, whereas 23.4% are on the fence. There is a very interesting future ahead for Bitcoin, and things will look very different in five years from now.
