Report: Nearly 60 Percent of Consumers Want To Buy Stuff With Crypto

The individuals who buy and hold cryptocurrency, and even those who don’t, agree on one thing: They think digital currencies should be able to be used to make everyday purchases, despite the fact that many obstacles to mainstream status still exist. The new Cryptocurrency Payments Playbook: Cryptocurrencies Gain Momentum as a Payment Option, a PYMNTS and BitPay collaboration, analyzes a census-balanced survey of 8,008 U.S. consumers who were current and former cryptocurrency owners and cryptocurrency non-owners.

Read more: Cryptocurrency Payments Playbook: Cryptocurrencies Gain Momentum As A Payment Option

Summarizing the terrain, two-thirds of users who have held cryptocurrencies purchased them to make transactions, per the Playbook. “Another 53 percent purchased because of [fear of missing out], which is up from 32 percent in the past,” adding that 93 percent of cryptocurrency users “would consider making purchases with it in the future, and 59 percent of consumers who have never held cryptocurrency are interested in using it to make purchases in the future.”

The Cryptocurrency Payments Playbook adds that “holders and non-holders are interested in cryptocurrency payments because of the possible enhanced privacy and security features over traditional credit card- or bank account-based payments.”

As for motivating factors, the Playbook notes that “59 percent of current or former cryptocurrency holders would be ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ interested in using crypto as a payment method if it meant they could obtain discounts. This share goes up to 65 percent among holders who already make or made purchases with cryptocurrencies and shrinks to 51 percent among those who have not.” Also, researchers found that 23 percent of non-holders “would be highly interested in paying with cryptocurrencies if they were offered discounts.”

Crypto’s path has barriers to overcome, with researchers finding that 75 percent of consumers “report not knowing enough about cryptocurrencies, how to obtain them or their tax implications as reasons for never having purchased them.” The second-most cited reason is that they have never purchased crypto, and that “it is just not mainstream or accepted enough.”

The Playbook adds that “more than half of non-owners ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ that not enough merchants accept cryptocurrency for payments, validating the notion that cryptocurrencies are becoming more mainstream. Another 30 percent agree that the ability to use crypto as a form of payment would make them spend more than they would when using traditional methods, such as credit cards. The interest both holders and non-holders express in being able to pay for goods and services with cryptocurrency confirms that acceptance is clearly a growth opportunity for merchants.