Press release: Almost one in five Australians now own cryptocurrency

[SYDNEY, 17 December 2020] As the price of bitcoin surpasses its previous all-time high, a new report released today shows that attitudes toward bitcoin are improving with almost one in five Australians now owning some cryptocurrency. Conducted annually, the Independent Reserve Cryptocurrency Index (IRCI)  is a nationwide survey providing a benchmark for the awareness, trust and confidence that everyday Australians have in digital currencies. Bitcoin is still the best known cryptocurrency, with 88.8 percent of the Australian population aware of it.

According to the IRCI, 78.2 percent of the survey respondents who did own crypto in 2020 said they were breaking even or better, with only 21.8 percent reporting a loss. The 45 – 54 age bracket were the most likely to have made money, with more than half in the black. This was a strong improvement on last year, where only 35 percent of their age group increased their wealth through crypto.

“We’re seeing more and more traditional and institutional investors look to bitcoin as a growth strategy,” said Adrian Przelozny, CEO of Independent Reserve, the Australian digital asset exchange that initiated the inaugural IRCI in 2019. “It marries with the attitudinal shift we’ve seen across the Australian population as now almost two in five people view bitcoin as a store of value or an investment vehicle,” he said.

As crypto continues to move into the mainstream, Australians are also more inclined to trust it. This year, only 17.3 percent of respondents still considered Bitcoin to be a scam, considerably down from 21.3 percent in 2019, reflecting a broader acceptance of the technology by the general public. Further indicative of shifting perceptions, 19.1 percent Australians said they now view bitcoin as a store of value, up from 16.7 percent in 2019.

Of those who had intended to buy crypto in 2020 but didn’t, more than a third said their purchasing decisions were directly impacted due to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis.

“Had it not been for the sobering effects of a global pandemic and the resulting downturn affecting people’s appetite to get into the market, it’s easy to imagine how the price of bitcoin could have soared even higher this year,” said Przelozny. “The IRCI 2020 shows that more and more Australians are gaining confidence in crypto,” he said.

Beyond the dominant crypto, twice as many men than women knew of other coins such as Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS and Litecoin. Millennials were nearly twice more likely than the general population to be informed about newer cryptos, such as Chainlink, an example of a token that has gained popularity amid this year’s trend toward decentralised finance (DeFi).

The full 2020 IRCI report can be viewed here.

RESOURCES

Photos of Adrian Przelozny [1], [2], [3].

Independent Reserve logo [1].

Infographics.

ABOUT THE IRCI

The Independent Reserve Cryptocurrency Index (IRCI) is a tool for measuring and tracking changing Australian attitudes to cryptocurrency at a national level. The IRCI score is the formal output of an annual nationwide cross-sectional survey based on four component indicators: awareness, adoption, trust and confidence. Based on the values of the four indicators, the IRCI determines attitudes on a 100-point scale where 0 is the worst possible score (where the population hasn’t even heard the word “bitcoin”) and 100 is the best (a society that has achieved total mass scale adoption of digital assets).

To conduct the survey, Independent Reserve engaged leading consumer research institution PureProfile to collect over 1,100 responses from a representative sample of the Australian population, with age, gender and geographic dispersion being proportional to national demographics.

Now in its second year, the inaugural IRCI was conducted in 2019.

ABOUT INDEPENDENT RESERVE

Established in 2013, Independent Reserve is Australia’s most trusted cryptocurrency exchange and OTC trading desk. Over 150,000 customers from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore trust Independent Reserve to easily buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and other major cryptocurrencies. Independent Reserve offers a range of innovative features, including AutoTrader, KPMG tax estimator, API integration and world-class security. Visit www.independentreserve.com for more.

CONTACT

For interviews, questions, photos and other resources relating to IRCI 2020, please email media@independentreserve.com.