TY - GEN
T1 - Who Uses Bitcoin? An exploration of the Bitcoin community
AU - Bohr, Jeremiah
AU - Bashir, Masooda
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 IEEE.
Copyright:
Copyright 2015 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Many cryptocurrencies have come into existence in recent years, with Bitcoin the most prominent among them. Although its short history has been volatile, the virtual currency maintains a core group of committed users. This paper presents an exploratory analysis of Bitcoin users. As a virtual currency and peer-to-peer payment system, Bitcoin may signal future challenges to state oversight and financial powers through its decentralized structure and offer of instantaneous transactions with relative anonymity. Very little is known about the users of Bitcoin, however. Utilizing publicly available survey data of Bitcoin users, this analysis explores the structure of the Bitcoin community in terms of wealth accumulation, optimism about the future of Bitcoin, and themes that attract users to the cryptocurrency. Results indicate that age, time of initial use, geographic location, mining status, engaging online discourse, and political orientation are all relevant factors that help explain various aspects of Bitcoin wealth, optimism, and attraction.
AB - Many cryptocurrencies have come into existence in recent years, with Bitcoin the most prominent among them. Although its short history has been volatile, the virtual currency maintains a core group of committed users. This paper presents an exploratory analysis of Bitcoin users. As a virtual currency and peer-to-peer payment system, Bitcoin may signal future challenges to state oversight and financial powers through its decentralized structure and offer of instantaneous transactions with relative anonymity. Very little is known about the users of Bitcoin, however. Utilizing publicly available survey data of Bitcoin users, this analysis explores the structure of the Bitcoin community in terms of wealth accumulation, optimism about the future of Bitcoin, and themes that attract users to the cryptocurrency. Results indicate that age, time of initial use, geographic location, mining status, engaging online discourse, and political orientation are all relevant factors that help explain various aspects of Bitcoin wealth, optimism, and attraction.
KW - Anonymity
KW - Bitcoin
KW - Cryptocurrency
KW - Digital Money
KW - Virtual Currency
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84910053952&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84910053952&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/PST.2014.6890928
DO - 10.1109/PST.2014.6890928
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84910053952
T3 - 2014 12th Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust, PST 2014
SP - 94
EP - 101
BT - 2014 12th Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust, PST 2014
A2 - Miri, Ali
A2 - Josang, Audun
A2 - Garcia-Alfaro, Joaquin
A2 - Hengartner, Urs
A2 - Huang, Nen-Fu
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2014 12th Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust, PST 2014
Y2 - 23 July 2014 through 24 July 2014
ER -