A new survey seems to question the general perception of Turkey as a country that knows about cryptomonies.
The important Turkish cryptoexchange Paribu had a simple objective: to find 1000 Turkish citizens who had somehow heard about cryptomontages. It took more than 6,000 video interviews in 12 cities across the country during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak to achieve this goal. The results obtained debunk an important myth about the Turkish cryptosystem.
An earlier report stating that one-fifth of the Turkish population had used or owned crypto currencies had attracted the attention of many global players in cryptology.
Statista’s worldwide survey, conducted during the first half of 2019 in 18 countries through online surveys with 1,000 respondents per country, had crowned Turkey as a world leader in the adoption of cryptomonics.
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This surprising adoption rate was the highlight of numerous presentations on the country and region since the report was first published.
The new Paribu survey, published on 23 July, contrasts sharply with previous world reports by stating that the use of crypts among Turkish citizens is actually less than 1%. The survey was carried out by the Akademetre Research Company on behalf of Paribu, and the results were made public in the report of the Cryptology Awareness and Perception Survey.
Five out of six people have never heard of Bitcoin
The report highlights that out of 6,253 respondents, only 44 were engaged in any type of transaction with crypto-currencies. In other words, only 0.7% of Turks bought or exchanged crypts. Furthermore, 97% of the respondents have no idea that blockchain technology is used to issue and control crypto currencies. About 84% of the respondents have never heard of the term or of Bitcoin (BTC).
These figures triggered a second phase of the survey. Knowing that 44 is too small a sample size to carry out reliable research, Akademetre and Paribu conducted another sampling. This time, they created another group of 300 regular users of the crypts.
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Turkish users see crypts as a form of investment
Through the new sampling, the survey deepened the perception of crypto users in the country. Of this new group of 300 respondents, 34% expressed their confidence in digital currency. It was also found that people seek information about them through digital channels, with the Internet (33.3%) and social networks (17.7%) being the two main options.
Crypts are mostly used as an investment or trading tool, and less than one in three respondents use them as a means of transferring money. Regardless of how it is used, crypto currencies have a high satisfaction rate among Turkish audiences of 72.7%.
Bitcoin dominates the picture
The first choice of Turkish users is Bitcoin with 68% in favor. Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin Millionaire follow with 14.7% and 9.7%, respectively. Commenting on the survey results, Paribu CEO Yasin Oral highlighted the low adoption rate of crypto currencies in Turkey, and added
„There is a huge potential audience in Turkey. As the country’s young and technologically savvy population sees the advantages of digital currencies, the number of users will increase accordingly. The high satisfaction rate of current crypto users is a big consequence of this.