According to the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer, an online survey of 34.000 people across 26 markets with 1.150 respondents each, only 48% of respondents worldwide trust cryptocurrencies and an even smaller slice - only 35% - think which will lead to positive results.
The data place China as the most bullish place for cryptocurrencies and associated innovations among the 26 surveyed markets: 81% of respondents on the Chinese market said they trust cryptography and blockchain and 62% believe that technologies will have a positive impact on the world.
Trust in cryptocurrencies grows on a global scale
Trust in cryptocurrencies has increased year by year, not just in China. Mexico and Argentina have gone up 20% or more since 2019, 17 countries have grown at least 10% and five countries have recorded 5% more gains.
Only three countries - Saudi Arabia, the United States and the United Kingdom - have seen confidence in cryptocurrencies and blockchain drop since 2019. Overall, global confidence has increased by 11%.
Collected before COVID-19 shook the financial markets, Edelman's data indicates that the cryptocurrency enjoyed a growing global basis of positive sentiment. Only in the period before halving bitcoin and the time of endless printing of money did it become more concentrated, said Deidre Campbell, global president of the financial services sector for Edelman.
US respondents approached the industry with statistically significant contempt. 26% believe that cryptocurrency and blockchain will have a positive impact on the world. The Canadians and the British led the team of doubters with only a 17% positivity rate each.
4 "imperatives" to improve global trust
Global technological skepticism also manifested itself in legal terms: 84% of distractors and 48% of "trusters" say that space needs stricter regulation. A slight majority of respondents on the Chinese market asked for stronger government controls.
88% of respondents for Hong Kong, 67% for the United States, 55% for South Korea and 34% for India said the same. Other figures indicate that technologies for invest in bitcoins generated in 2008 they still have a long way to go before going beyond their information echo chamber.
Those who claimed to be very well informed about crypto and blockchain also had the most positive feelings towards them, at 71%. The same figure declined when familiarity levels declined - bottomed out to 19% among those who claimed they were not informed at all.
The Edelman report identified four "imperatives" to improve global confidence in the cryptocurrency based on the survey results. At least 40% of all respondents said that communicating the downsides of technology, the benefits, increasing education and engaging the industry in an ethical code, respectively, will help them build more trust.
