As many as 46 million U.S. consumers will consider using cryptocurrency to make retail purchases, regardless of whether or not they currently own crypto, a joint study by media outlet PYMNTS and Bitcoin payment service BitPay shows.
Extrapolation indicates that purchases made using cryptocurrency could conservatively represent around 1% of all retail sales in the next year.
The study, entitled “The Cryptocurrency Payments Report: How Consumers Want to Use it to Shop and Pay,” conducted between Feb. 8 and 23, was census-balanced and polled 8,008 United States consumers who were current and former cryptocurrency users and non-users.
“Our analysis shows that not only do current cryptocurrency owners have a high level of comfort making purchases using cryptocurrencies, but so do those who have never owned them,” PYMNTS said in a separate statement.
“Along those same lines, 57% of former or present cryptocurrency owners made at least one purchase using it last year, and 59% of consumers who never owned cryptocurrency are interested in using it to make purchases in the future. The fact that more than half of consumers who have never owned cryptocurrency are interested in using it in the future illustrates that consumers now perceive cryptocurrencies as a valid payment option,” it added.
The researchers also discovered that 16% of the U.S. population either currently own cryptocurrencies or once did. Some 30 million consumers currently own cryptocurrency, and nearly 24 million consumers who are either former owners or non-owners plan on acquiring it in the future.
In all, 29 % of consumers are likely to purchase cryptocurrency, whether they are owners or not.
