Yesterday, I created a survey about bitcoin and posted it to reddit. It was also posted to bitcointalk.org. The formatted results can be found here, and the raw data as a spreadsheet here.

The survey is still live, so feel free to take it.

The goal was to answer some basic questions about bitcoin users that I have been curious about. The survey has so far received over 3,000 responses.

I think I could have been a little more thorough about what questions were asked and what answers were provided as options, but overall I am pleased with the results.

Results

It’s important to note that these results only really represent bitcoin users from the bitcoin subreddit and the bitcointalk forums. There are probably all kinds of people who have used bitcoin before who are not represented here, such as people who heard about it on the news, bitcoin users in asia, and investors who have experimented with it. There is probably some overlap, but I imagine most of them are left out.

Initial Impressions

1) If you own over 1,000 BTC, you’re in the top 1%

Apparently 24 people claim to have over 100,000 BTC, but I’m not counting that. It is likely that there is a small group of people from the early days outside of Satoshi who have over 100,000 BTC, but it’s doubtful that as many as 24 of them would have even seen the survey, so I think that’s probably people joking around.

2) Lots of people have bought things with bitcoin

The fraction of users who responded “yes” to this question would probably be lower if it were given to a more representative set of bitcoin users instead of just reddit and bitcointalk, but I’m still impressed with this ratio.

This seems to go against the argument that “people won’t spend a deflationary currency.” There are places like HackerNews where that argument used to be 40% of the comments in bitcoin threads, and now you just don’t see it anymore.

3) More people have lost bitcoin due to their own mistakes than to the mistakes of others

This one is surprising to me. More users claim to have lost bitcoin due to their own mistakes than due to the failure of services where bitcion is held for users. The surveyed communities are probably more hardcore/technically inclined than the average person who has used bitcoin. If they can’t figure it out, who can?

I don’t think this is an argument against storing your own keys - but represents an opportunity for someone to make it a lot simpler. And the advice to new users to avoid services that make using bitcion simple may be a little misguided.

Just look at this response to a bitcoin newb on the bitcoin subreddit on how to store bitcoin securely. It’s no wonder so many people end up making a mistake and getting burned:

And that’s just one variant. A Google search shows that this stuff is everywhere. And it’s all different. And in the end, can a new user really gage the comprehensiveness of the security anyway?

4) Using bitcoin changes people’s economic views

45% of responders claim to have changed their economic views as a result of interacting with bitcoin - in some cases, even believing less in free market economics than previously.

It is unclear whether this is a result of interacting with bitcoin directly, or the communities around bitcoin, who have to justify why it exists. My guess is more the latter.

I’ve personally become more anarchist, because I have been presented with a real-world example of how technology can replace some aspects of government.

Data

I think the most interesting results from this survey are probably combinations of multiple answers.

For example: there is a question “What percentage of your net worth is in bitcoin?” - but what does the response distribution look like only for people who claim to have between 1,000-10,000 BTC? On average, is it > 50%, meaning they bought low, got lucky and rode the bubbles up, or is it significantly lower, meaning they are already quite well off from other things?

Are people who said that cloud wallets should be “avoided at all costs” more likely to have lost bitcoin due to their own mistakes?

How have the economic and political views changed for those who still claim to be bitcoin skeptics?

What’s in all those “other” fields?

I don’t know. But you might, if you’re interested. The data is free for you to download and parse.

Take care and good luck storing those private keys.