Is Cryptocurrency Becoming the New Normal?

Following the 2008 Great Recession and its associated banking crisis, Bitcoin and other alternatives to traditional banks and currencies have continued to gain more appeal as long-term stores of value. As we make our way through the economic fallout of a global pandemic, this ongoing trend has become more apparent for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Notably, although public attitudes toward Bitcoin have been mixed, Goldman Sachs’s Millennial Fund has out-performed 95% of peers during COVID-19, as cited by an article in The Tokenist. Additionally,  the Tokenist’s recently conducted survey focuses heavily on millennial’s attitudes toward Bitcoin, comparing them to other generations. For easier comparison, it utilized the same questions used in three 2017 surveys. You might be surprised by some of what The Tokenist found, and their process for conducting the survey is interesting in itself.

Before we discuss the survey results, it is important to note that The Tokenist combined data from two populations that may potentially be quite different: 4,111 respondents on the Google Surveys platform and 741 of The Tokenist’s readers, contacted via an email campaign. The people who responded via Google Surveys better represent Internet users in general, whereas respondents who read The Tokenist are, by definition, more likely to take an interest in Bitcoin. Therefore, because of how the data was collected and combined, the results may not reflect the attitudes of the general public as a whole. We still believe that the level of familiarity and the positive attitudes people of all age groups have about Bitcoin is generally increasing around the world since survey respondents came from 17 different countries. The survey found that 60% of respondents believe Bitcoin to be “a positive innovation in financial technology” in 2020, a 27% increase over 2017 numbers. 47% trust Bitcoin over big banks, a 29% increase during the same time period. Additionally, 78% of millennials expressed some familiarity with Bitcoin, versus 61% of all respondents.

Although positive attitudes toward Bitcoin are increasing broadly, some generational differences remain, as cited by Decrypt.co. For instance, 51% of millennials trust Bitcoin more than they trust big banks. This represents a 24% increase, compared with 2017 survey respondents. In contrast, 93% of senior citizens still trust big banks over Bitcoin in 2020.

When it comes to investing, 44% of millennial respondents said that they expect to buy Bitcoin in the next five years, and 45% of all respondents prefer Bitcoin investments instead of traditional investments such as stocks, real estate, and gold. It will be interesting to see how crowdfunding trends play out in the real estate industry, especially when it comes to security token offering (STO) accredited investors.

Did you know that VerifyInvestor.com uses your cryptocurrency as evidence of assets? This is important because investors must pass certain income or net worth tests to be verified as accredited investors and participate in a certain private placement or crowdfunding offerings. Notably, anyone using Rule 506(c) of Regulation D of the Securities Act must verify that all their investors are accredited investors who have met these thresholds.

At VerifyInvestor.com, when an issuer signs up, we will work directly with their investors to verify their status. To use cryptocurrency as evidence of assets, investors will need to generate a statement from their cryptocurrency wallet or account to see the name of the account holder and the cryptocurrency amount. Additionally, we will need a link or a screenshot of a website that lists the value of the cryptocurrency in USD. A signed message may also be required to demonstrate cryptographic proof of ownership.