Many recent polls and surveys have shown that millennials constitute the largest demographic to adopt Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. However, students at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) don’t seem to have gotten the memo as highlighted by a recent vox pop conducted in the school.
Apparently, there are college undergrads today who prefer to be given $1 as against receiving 1 BTC which is currently worth more than $8,000.
I Choose the Dollar
In the video created and uploaded to YouTube by “Capital Creators,” college students at CU Boulder almost unanimously chose to be given $1 instead of 1 Bitcoin. The reason for their choice ranged from lack of understanding about BTC to lack of interest in cryptocurrency, and even the belief that the dollar was a more stable store of value.
Even the respondents who chose to accept BTC seemed only to be interested in Bitcoin because it is a regular fixture in the news. None of the participants had a cryptocurrency wallet and were not even aware of the process involved in receiving BTC transfers.
The Dollar Stability Myth
One constant that came up throughout the video was the dollar stability myth. One of the respondents when asked what her choice would be, quipped:
“I’d take the dollar because I know its value and it’s not going to change. It [the dollar] doesn’t depend on what other people do.”
The above statement is either an indictment of the American educational system or a lack of understanding of macroeconomics. Since the mining of Bitcoin’s Genesis block in January 2009, the dollar has lost 15 percent of its value and this is without accounting for the two percent inflation set by the Federal Reserve.
https://twitter.com/TwoSatoshis/status/1007011974121746433
Meanwhile, BTC has risen from an obscure “Internet money” to become worth more than $8,000. Back in mid-December 2017, the top-ranked cryptocurrency almost eclipsed the $20,000 mark.
In the decade since Bitcoin came into existence, BTC has outpaced the dollar. The purchasing power of BTC is higher now than it was in 2009.
Perhaps some of the respondents conflated BTC volatility with lack of upward value over time. Within discrete periods, it may seem like Bitcoin experiences wild price swings but on an annualized basis, BTC ends up maintaining something close to a positive price trajectory.
Bitcoin Illiteracy Still High
At the heart of the sentiments espoused by the participating college students was the shocking Bitcoin illiteracy among what one would assume to be tech-savvy individuals. One respondent even said:
“Isn’t Bitcoin like a guy in a cave in Antartica? Doesn’t he run that [Bitcoin]?”
The above participant is on another end of the BTC illiteracy spectrum and shows the amount of work needed to be done to get the masses all caught up on the emerging digital landscape.
Back in December 2018, Blockonomi reported on a survey by trading firm e-Toro showing that people were clamoring for more cryptocurrency-related education. With responses like “Bitcoin is a guy in Antartica,” such drastic measures cannot happen soon enough.
Perhaps as a testament to the fact that ignorance more than anything is the biggest obstacle to adoption, once the respondents became the wiser as to Bitcoin’s price, all of them changed their minds and chose Bitcoin.
One participant did, however, stick to her guns, saying:
“If I were to invest, I’d invest in something other than Bitcoin.”
Well, BTC is the best performing asset of 2019 and has consistently outpaced the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. BTC is up more than 120 percent since the start of the year, adding over $2,000 to its price between April and May 2019 alone.