Few online shoppers in UK intend to use Bitcoin in future

While more than half of UK online shoppers have heard of virtual currency Bitcoin, very few, just 18%, intend to use it in the future. Nearly 3 in 10 (29%) said they would not use Bitcoin in the future and the same number again weren’t sure. According to Clarity, 24% were indifferent and demonstrated a lack of understanding of virtual currencies.

Clarity’s survey of 2,065 online shoppers in the UK for its #FutureOfMoney study reveals that the vast majority have never used any type of digital currency. The main reason for this appears to be “now knowing enough” to make an informed decision. However, 53% cited a lack of experience of digital currencies as a barrier to using Bitcoin.

According to Clarity co-founder Jason Navon, who is himself a Bitcoin owner, “recent claims that it’s becoming mainstream are wide of the mark”.

“These results show that there’s a long way to go before Bitcoin or any of the other digital currencies achieve anything like a critical mass with consumers,” he told The Telegraph. “Issues around security, price volatility and usability are among the challenges facing the developers.”

While Bitcoin certainly is not yet mainstream, it is creeping in to consumers’ lives. Social gaming outfit Zynga is testing BitPay for players of a select number of its games and creative technologist, Samuel Fox, has recently been in the media with his prototype Bitcoin real-time price tag concept.

While Bitcoin has received much press over the past year, its value has sky-rocketed and plummeted in equal measure, and the future of the currency is equally as unstable. While the Bank of America deems Bitcoin a “serious competitor to traditional money providers”, its instability is likely to keep it from going mainstream for the foreseeable future.