-
@ Ralphie
2025-05-20 10:14:45
Many of you are skeptical of our finding, released this morning that 4 in 5 Americans would convert some US gold reserves into bitcoin.
"Yeah right! You must have done your survey at a bitcoin conference!"
We were also surprised too. But the results are the results.
The internet doubted us last year when we saw that bitcoiners were all over the political map, and extreme liberals were well represented among owners.
Many other surveys have since vindicated what we found: in politics and in many other ways, American bitcoiners look much like America itself. We are confident that our results this year will also hold up in future polling.
Here's how we collected our sample and here's the precise prompt that led to our result.
1. Data.
Our survey consisted of national sample of 3,345 respondents recruited in partnership with Qualtrics, a survey and data collection company.
No sample is perfectly random. This was conducted online and participants were paid. But, we asked Qualtrics to match US Census distribution in terms of age, genders, race, income, education, geography, etc., as closely as possible. As you will see in the full report, we approximated the US population pretty well.
Many of our results very closely tracked last year's results in ways that confirmed the quality of our sample. The sample did not show unexpectedly high rates of bitcoin ownership (more in the report) or high rates of bitcoin sentiment (more in the report).
2. Timing.
We opened the survey at the end of February and ended data collection mid-March.
3. The prompt.
"Assuming the United States was thinking of converting some of their gold reserve into Bitcoin, what percentage would you advise they convert?"
Respondents were provided a slider used to choose between 0% and 100%.
4. Related question.
We also asked, in the wake of Trump's tweet on March 2, just as our data collection was getting underway, whether people approved of the formation of the Strategic Crypto Reserve (the 3/6 SBR Executive order had not yet been issued). We got a less enthusiastic response to that proposal: 66% of respondents were neutral-to-positive.
5. Framing.
We suspect framing effects are powerful here given how novel the idea of a reserve is. There are many ways of asking similar questions, some of which will elicit more positive, and some more negative responses. Such is the nature of surveys. But the fact remains: when given a slider and asked to advise the US government on the right proportion of bitcoin and gold, subjects were very reluctant to put that slider on 0% bitcoin and 100% gold. Instead, they settled around 10% bitcoin. Make of that what you will.
6. Average.
The median bitcoin conversion recommendation was 10%, but the mean was actually 20.3%. That sounds even more pro-bitcoin, and even more outlandish. But that was also the actual result.
7. Age.
As you can see from the graphic, the recommended proportions of bitcoin drops significantly with age. Not surprising to us, given the inverse relationship we found last year between age and bitcoin ownership/sentiment.
8. Gender.
Women recommend smaller bitcoin allocations than men, also in keeping with previous findings. However, older men (60+) were the most likely to recommend all gold, whereas older women were more leery of 100% gold exposure. So, men were more extreme in their recommendations at both the high and the low end.
9. The report.
It's a really rich data set, as we asked a comprehensive panel of questions, just like last year. I could go on with politics, race, and other factors related to just this question. But this thread is a preview. The full report is coming as fast as we can produce it.
Thanks for your skepticism--we welcome it, always!--and your patience in reading this long post.
Bottom line is that 4 in 5 of the people we surveyed recommended that the US diversify some of its gold reserves into bitcoin.
An amazing stat, we think! It's very different from the consensus in DC and apparently different from the Twitter consensus too. Just like last year's result.
- nostr:npub1n3sjlzmhpu8rl56umtptc4lua6zkretq2p82yhytnmlcuq639vlqd0te5l
nostr:nevent1qqswrt5sug63exkg2gs9m6r4ujk0p7y4430eteuxayha0d87yw5uffczyzwxztutwu8su07ntndv90zhlnhg2c09vpgyagju3w00lrsr2y4nuqcyqqqqqqgpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgurtz8c