Wirex & Stellar report suggests crypto mass adoption coming

A survey of Stellar and Wirex users identifies pain points and potential use cases of cryptocurrencies

The Stellar Development Fund, in collaboration with digital payment platform Wirex, yesterday announced the publication of new cryptocurrency research. 3,834 Wirex and Stellar customers were surveyed across 89 countries and the results point to specific customer problems as well as identifying real-world cryptocurrency use cases.

One of the interesting findings of the research was that age appears to be no barrier to blockchain technology adoption: 57.2% of respondents were 45 or older, with that figure being higher for Europeans and lower for those in the Asia-Pacific. The report also stated that 26.1% of women aged 55-64 had invested in crypto compared with 14.3% of men in the same age bracket. Indeed, Wirex shared research today which suggested that the percentage of people in crypto who are female had risen from just 2% in 2016 to 43% in 2020.

It would seem that a possible use case for cryptocurrencies is international payments. Three quarters of those questioned had sent money abroad and more than 40% had done so through an online payment system. However, cryptocurrency transaction fees would have to be kept low for mass adoption as roughly half of those surveyed believed that even a 1% transaction fee was too high.

While cryptocurrencies appear to be becoming more mainstream, stablecoins still have a long way to go. Although 83% of respondents owned digital assets, 75% had never heard of stablecoins. Consumers are definitely open to alternatives to traditional payment methods though – almost three quarters of those asked said that they view digital asset/stablecoin payments as a viable alternative to traditional money transfer services, with high transaction fees appearing to be the driver.

Cryptocurrency adoption has seen a recent surge, with an estimated 40 million people already using it in some way. The report also claims that the number of blockchain wallet users has risen by 240% in the last three years. Although 86.1% of those surveyed feel safe using cryptocurrencies, there is still some way to go on the road to mass adoption. Security fears seem to increase with age and more education is needed to overcome these as well as concerns stemming from the 2017 ‘Crypto Bubble’.

In the coming months, key stakeholders will be providing comments, thoughts and insights on the report’s findings, which will be published on the Wirex blog. They also have plans to carry out additional research on a wider audience, to be revealed in the near future.