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A report by Block Inc., in conjunction with Wakefield Research, detailed several interesting findings concerning Bitcoin.

The report explored Bitcoin narratives to better understand people’s knowledge and perceptions of it across geographical regions, gender, income, and age.

Key findings of the survey

Researchers surveyed 9,500 respondents in 14 countries across three regions, the Americas; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; and (3) Asia-Pacific. The study was conducted over 18 days in January through an online survey.

Many respondents see Bitcoin as a helpful payment mechanism for sending remittances and buying goods and services.

While cryptocurrency is typically seen as a male-dominated sector, the survey discovered that outside of the Americas, this narrative is less pronounced in terms of ownership and “self-described” knowledge.

People cite concerns over security, price volatility, and the uncertain regulatory landscape as the main reasons to be pessimistic about Bitcoin.

Unsurprisingly, people worldwide have a greater awareness of Bitcoin than any other cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin is the people’s currency

Earlier this year, Elon Musk called Dogecoin the people’s currency, emphasizing the point further, saying there’s “no need to be a gigachad to own [it].”

No need to be a gigachad to own

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2021

However, the Block Inc. survey results suggest Bitcoin, rather than  Dogecoin, is the people’s currency.

The survey’s section on “Bitcoin for a more equitable economy” surveyed why people buy Bitcoin across different income scales from low to high.

The results show lower than average income respondents (the people) favor buying Bitcoin for utility reasons, such as sending money to others and purchasing goods and services.

By contrast, higher than average income earners tend to buy Bitcoin for investment reasons, such as speculation and investment diversification.

“People with below-average income more frequently note using bitcoin as a way to send money and buy goods and services than people with above-average incomes.”

This trend remained consistent across countries, with developed nations clustered lower down the scale of using BTC as a payment system, as opposed to an investment vehicle, in the chart below.

Based on this data, it’s fair to conclude that everyday people understand that Bitcoin is a currency used in their day-to-day lives., which is what Satoshi Nakamoto intended, per the title of the Bitcoin white paper, which read “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.”

In a recent Twitter thread, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has suggested several improvements that could make Dogecoin the currency of the internet and the people.

The 35-year-old executive claims that transaction fees have to be “vanishingly small” for the meme cryptocurrency to reach widespread acceptance. The Dogecoin Core 1.14.5 upgrade, which was implemented last November, significantly lowered transaction fees. As noted by Tenev, this makes it a much cheaper alternative to popular card networks that typically charge up to 3% per transaction.   

The Robinhood executive also says that the block time should be reduced to just ten seconds. In such a way, Dogecoin would be able to compete with Visa and other card networks. However, Tenev also believes that the block time shouldn’t be too fast so that miners wouldn’t have to waste too much energy on establishing consensus.

Dogecoin Satoshi’s Vision?   

Tenev has proposed increasing Dogecoin’s block size to 10 gigabytes (GB), which would make it possible for the Bitcoin parody to handle a high number of transactions. One of the key arguments against increasing the block size is that it would inevitably result in a higher degree of centralization since one would be required to operate expensive hardware in order to run a full node. Tenev, however, believes that it would be a reasonable trade-off, seemingly echoing Bitcoin SV supporters.

Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus has commented that the infrastructure of the web has improved enough to speed up Dogecoin. Centibillionaire Elon Musk has also joined the debate, claiming that the block size has to keep pace with the rest of the internet.

Dogecoin has had a long-standing loyal user base, vouching for it at any time regardless of varied criticism floating in the market. The coin continues to remain among the top coins. Moreover, even though it’s growth was interrupted in the recent past, new developments have transpired. 

Dogecoin barks louder than Bitcoin

Yesterday, was a rather fruitful day for DOGE as it marked the highest single-day rise of the month.

Even though most in the market including Bitcoin did not mark significant growth this week, DOGE climbed up the price charts by 16.16%.

A potential cause behind this rise could be Elon Musk’s proclamation of his team at Tesla and SpaceX owning DOGE. He said that these people aren’t necessarily financial experts but still hold DOGE. This is also why he called it “the people’s crypto.”

According to a survey of 41,645 people from 22 countries, DOGE was one of the most in-demand tokens, and over 30.6% of all crypto owners in the United States owned DOGE. This is almost as many people as those who own Ethereum and way more than those who own Cardano and Binance Coin.

The average global crypto adoption rate of Dogecoin was merely 19.2% and that in the USA was 1.6 times more than that.

Following the evergreen trend of acting during the hype, DOGE investors became active yesterday and volumes soared up to an almost 2 months high of $2.5 billion. Further, in a single day, cumulatively, over 6.1 billion DOGE worth around $1.22 billion was bought and sold.

This month saw mostly bigger wallets playing well in the market conducting transactions worth $5-$7 billion on a daily basis. But retail investors haven’t seen a clear-cut profit scenario yet.

And this one incident from yesterday cannot be considered as a trigger for a bigger rally, since today DOGE dropped by 3.17% confirming its status as “people’s coin,” the value of which rises and falls exactly as people desire.

For a minute there, it seemed like the FUD was over. The People’s Bank of China contributes to its country’s crypto-crackdown at the “Financial Knowledge Popularization Month,” People’s Daily Online reports from Beijing. Speaking at an event, Yin Youping, Deputy Director of the Financial Consumer Rights Protection Bureau of the People’s Bank of China, claimed: 

“We remind the people once again that virtual currencies such as Bitcoin are not legal tender and have no actual value support.” 

Related Reading | “The Death Of China’s Bitcoin Mining Industry,” 7 Takeaways From The Article

Furthermore, Yin Youping classified all cryptocurrency-related investments as pure speculation. He advised the public to “consciously stay away” from virtual assets to avoid unnecessary risk, and to “protect their “pocket.” Nothing crazy coming from a fiat-fuelled bureaucrat. Nevertheless, an interesting new piece in China’s crypto-puzzle.

Disclaimer: This article used Google-Translated quotes and information. Small inconsistencies are a possibility. 

What Else Did The People’s Bank Of China Said?

Besides contributing to China’s crypto-crackdown, Yin Youping responded to the “rebound” in cryptocurrency trading in his country. The People’s Bank of China will:

• Work overtime to “detect overseas exchanges and domestic traders.”
• Block “trading websites, apps, and corporate channels.”
• Intensify “policy publicity,” to let everyone in China know the law of the land. 
• Establish “a normalized working mechanism” and continue to crack down on cryptocurrency transactions. 
• Maintain “a high-pressure situation.”

The People’s Bank of China’s aim is pretty clear. And it seems to be working, Youping claimed that “the popularity of virtual currency trading has dropped significantly.” The Deputy Director also encouraged the general public to report “illegal fund-raising crimes” to the relevant authorities.

BTC price chart for 08/27/2021 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

Does This Offer Insight Into China’s Crypto Strategy?

In a thread summarizing the case, Chinese journalist Colin Wu gave us inside information that wasn’t part of the article. “By blocking exchanges and strengthening policy publicity, China’s popularity has dropped significantly.”

3. By blocking exchanges and strengthening policy publicity, China’s popularity has dropped significantly
4. Crack down on illegal fund-raising activities with virtual currency and blockchain.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 27, 2021

One of the surprising revelations from Chainalysis’ Global Crypto Adoption report is that P2P trading “declined dramatically” in China. At the time, we naively asked: 

Why are Chinese people abandoning P2P trading so radically? Wouldn’t the “government crackdowns on cryptocurrency trading” cause a surge in old P2P trading instead?

This “high-pressure situation” that the People’s Bank of China maintains might be the answer to both questions. As we learned, both  “the popularity of virtual currency trading” and “China’s popularity” dropped significantly. China’s cracking down on the general population as much as on their biggest industries. Bloomberg tried to explain their moves by defining the “New China Model” as:

If China is abandoning the Silicon Valley model, what will it replace it with? Insiders suggest it will be less founder-driven and more China-centric.

Related Reading | China Banned Bitcoin Mining. What Happens To Small Hydropower Stations Now?

We finished that article with more questions than answers. From “Why is China dwarfing its biggest industries and players? Is the “China Model” just concerned with scale?” To “Is their crackdown on Big Tech even related to their crackdown on Bitcoin mining?“ And concluded:

There’s only one thing we can know for sure: China’s making big coordinated moves when it comes to tech. And they seem to have a plan.

Maybe their plan is simpler than we thought. It’s possible that The People’s Bank of China is just going to make it really really hard for the common citizen to access Bitcoin. And, China’ll use propaganda and repetition to keep people in check and scared of the unknown. One of Bitcoin’s prototipical adversarial scenarios. A battle that Bitcoin expected sooner or later.

Featured Image by Bruce Röttgers on Unsplash - Charts by TradingView

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has again given Dogecoin (DOGE) a boost in recent days, after claiming “DOGE is the people’s way to pay.” The tweet on Saturday has helped push the coin’s price up by around 30%, and Dogecoin enthusiasts (known as Shibes) continue to be delighted as both Elon Musk and Cuban tout the coin’s potential as a digital currency.

Does Doge work as a currency?

Cuban’s opinion of Dogecoin as a currency is a far cry from the Shark Tank judge and crypto enthusiast’s lukewarm stance on the popular meme coin earlier in the year.

Back in February, he tweeted: “If I had to choose between buying a lottery ticket and #Dogecoin …..I would buy #Dogecoin. But please don’t ask me to choose between it and anything else.”

But in March, Cuban announced that the Dallas Mavericks (which he owns) would accept Dogecoin payments, and by May it looked like he might be signing up to the Shibe army. “The joke is now legit,” he tweeted on May 2.

His argument is that if people are using Dogecoin to pay for goods and services — and companies are accepting it — then it’s a usable currency. And to an extent, that argument holds water: Cuban says that people spend thousands of dollars in DOGE each week in the Maverick’s store.

Many cryptocurrencies have struggled with mainstream adoption. But Dogecoin has an active community of supporters, many of them first-time investors. And this popularity may help it succeed where more serious coins have struggled.

Popularity alone is not enough

As an investment, one of the dangers of Dogecoin is that it remains an extremely speculative play. Its price often jumps on the backs of tweets from Musk or Cuban. But the fact remains that Dogecoin does not have a whitepaper — or a real business plan.

If it is to succeed as a digital currency, it needs partnerships with a lot more retailers. And it needs a full-time team to resolve any technical issues that arise and drive it forward.

It’s also worth pointing out that Dogecoin is built using the same energy-intensive proof-of-work mining model that’s caused problems for cryptocurrency granddaddy Bitcoin (BTC). It isn’t an issue right now, but if Dogecoin grows, so will its carbon footprint. Other eco-friendly cryptos use different mining models that cost a fraction of the energy.

The other challenge is that any cryptocurrency that only functions as a form of payment may be overshadowed by the growth of stablecoins and govcoins.

Stablecoins are like normal cryptocurrencies except their value is pegged to another commodity — such as the U.S. dollar. This means they bring the benefits of crypto payments (speed and low costs), but without the price fluctuations. It’s a more attractive proposition for retailers as cryptocurrency price volatility can play havoc with their cash flows.

Govcoins are similar, but rather than pegging their value to traditional currencies, these coins are digital versions of those currencies. For example, if the U.S. launches a digital dollar, it would be fully backed by the government. China is already piloting a digital yuan, and the U.S. is deciding whether to follow suit.

These developments make the digital currency space complicated.

Mark Cuban only owns about $500 worth of DOGE

It’s great publicity for the Mavericks to accept Dogecoin payments and court the purchasing power of the Shibes. But the truth is that Cuban hasn’t put his money where his mouth is. Another tweet over the weekend revealed he only owns $494 worth of DOGE, which, in the context of the rest of his cryptocurrency portfolio, is not a lot.

Dogecoin is available from most top cryptocurrency exchanges and owning a small amount of DOGE may be a fun way to join the cryptocurrency community. The coin is certainly full of surprises.

But if you do decide to buy Dogecoin, follow Cuban’s lead and make sure it only represents a small part of your overall portfolio. All cryptocurrency investments carry risk, but there are many safer (and arguably more interesting) coins on the market.