Friday, May 17, 2013

Instant Poll on Bitcoin Popularity

Last night I stopped by a FedEx Kinkos in downtown San Francisco to have some copies made. While waiting, I noticed that the three FedEx clerks were all somewhere between their early 20s and mid 30s, and all a bit wonkish, so I decided to take an instant poll to see if they had ever heard of bitoins.

The assistant manager Chris is 33 and originally from Nigeria. He had not heard of bitcoins.

One of the employees, Jack is 36, a white guy, who has a graduate degree in international policy (Given he is working at Fed Ex, those of you heading for graduate degrees should take note.) However, he did know what bitcoins were and told me that because of his background in international policy he was thinking of trading currencies, including virtual currencies. (I can hear all full-time traders screaming, "Yikes!" Trading is a  very tough and emotionally draining business. I know quite a few full time traders, but I know many, many more who tried to become traders and blew up their accounts and lost most if not all of their money.)

The third employee was 21 year old Asian-American, Mike. He is studying fashion design and told me he did not know what bitcoins were.

Okay, EPJ readers, let's get out there and take some more instant polls on Bitcoin popularity, from around the country, email the results to me.

4 comments:

  1. This is just contriving a straw-man. Yeah, we know average Joes don't know anything about Bitcoin, but the exact same point could be made by quizzing them about the value and utility of gold.

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    1. Actually, I think RW's point is just the exact opposite. Asking just 3 random people and one knows about bitcoins is pretty impressive.

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  2. Replies
    1. Gawd you have no imagination.

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