Almost no one uses Bitcoin as currency, new data proves. It’s actually more like gambling
Bitcoin boosters like to claim Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, are becoming mainstream. There’s a good reason to want people to believe this.
The only way the average punter will profit from crypto is to sell it for more than they bought it. So it’s important to talk up the prospects to build a “fear of missing out”.
There are loose claims that a large proportion of the population – generally in the range of 10% to 20% – now hold crypto. Sometimes these numbers are based on counting crypto wallets, or on surveying wealthy people.
But the hard data on Bitcoin use shows it is rarely bought for the purpose it ostensibly exists: to buy things. The whole point of Bitcoin, as its creator “Satoshi Nakamoto” stated in the opening sentence of the 2008 white paper outlining the concept, was that: A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow onlinepayments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through afinancial institution.
