Over 40 pc of Indian crypto traders see Bitcoin as a means of payment: Block report

A new report by digital payments firm Block (formerly Square) and Wakefield research says that nearly half of Indian Bitcoin traders see value in the cryptocurrency as a "means of transacting."

Over 35 percent also see it as a good method for remittance payments.

The report, "Bitcoin: Knowledge and Perceptions," surveyed 9,500 people in 14 countries across five continents. Apart from India, other major countries surveyed include the USA, UK, China, Nigeria, and Argentina.

The report found strong trends by geography and income class of surveyed participants. Traders from lower-income countries such as India, China, Vietnam, and Nigeria tended to have a larger skew towards seeing Bitcoin as a method of transacting versus those in higher-income countries such as America and the UK who bought it for investment reasons.

While 50 percent of traders in higher-income groups saw Bitcoin purchases as a way to potentially make more money, the corresponding number in lower-income groups was 38 percent.

Interestingly, the report also found that countries with higher inflation rates tended to see Bitcoin as a hedge against this change despite the volatility of the crypto markets. Argentina, which saw an over 40 percent inflation rate in 2021, according to the report, had over 45 percent of respondents say that they see Bitcoin as protection from these changes.

When it came to gender, the report saw that there was almost no gender divide among respondents who both own Bitcoin and see themselves as experts in the Asia Pacific (APAC) and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) regions.

However, nations in the Americas saw fewer females than males being comfortable drawing the same conclusion on expertise.

Block, led by CEO Jack Dorsey, has bet big on Bitcoin in recent months. It even changed its name from Square to Block in December 2021 to reflect its increased focus on the crypto and blockchain space. Dorsey stepped down from Twitter around the same time to focus on Block.