Independent research into international use of crypto-currency bitcoin has found that 16pc of people who have used it have lost money on it.

The research, compiled by games industry expert Jamie McCormick, now editor of BitcoinsinIreland.com and operator of the BitcoininMarketingTeam.com website, has revealed that 16pc of bitcoin owners actually lost their bitcoin because they lost their keys.

The first report of the #BitcoinSurvey – a three-month open research project – received 150 responses from bitcoin users in 51 countries.

The survey aims to get a sense of how people are using bitcoin in 2015.

Typical owners of bitcoin are generally in their late 20s to early 40s and 89pc are male.

Desktop wallets are the most popular way to store bitcoin and nearly one-sixth had lost bitcoin due to losing their keys.

Gambling with bitcoin

Most respondents are registered with at least one exchange, while 25pc use them to buy bitcoin to spend on themselves.

More than 25pc said they had lost bitcoin due to a bitcoin exchange going out of business or being hacked in the past.

Nearly 90pc of respondents are aware of what a bitcoin faucet is, with only one fifth reporting that they actively use them.

Just over half have also gambled using bitcoin, with dice roll sites proving the most popular, with nearly four in 10 having bet on them.

Nearly four in 10 also said they had mined bitcoin, with as many people responding that they bought hardware that is now offline, as those who have continued to increase their hashrate.

McCormick told Siliconrepublic.com that with just 11pc of bitcoin users being female this is considerably lower than the female proportion of video gamers.

He said that in some cases people who use bitcoin to gamble do so to hide their gambling addiction.

Bitcoin image via Shutterstock