The UK public is apparently quite keen on the general idea of alternatives to the current payments infrastructure. A recent survey found that almost a third of British consumers “intend to use” cryptocurrency as a form of payment this year, although it wasn’t clear to me how or what for. In similar vein, almost half of British consumers say that they “trust brands who accept crypto payments” but I’m not sure why, since almost all of them have never used crypto to pay for anything in a branded context or otherwise.
Overall, I have to say that I find these results surprising for a few reasons although I’m not sure that it really matters, since I’m not sure it is wise to listen to UK consumers. Asking the public for their opinions about something they don’t understand is pointless, a bit like surveying people about what they wanted from social media in the days of bulletin boards and dial-up modems, but there you go.
Personally, I find the idea that a third of UK consumers intend to use “crypto” as a form of payment far-fetched to say the least. Most people hold cryptocurrency as a speculative investment if they hold it at all and if they genuinely think that it is going to the moon they are not going to waste it on pizza. Even if they do want to spend it, it is time-consuming more inconvenient than almost any other means of payment bar cowrie shells.
I suppose it might be possible that a third of the population think that they will use a cryptocurrency of one form or another to buy a picture of a chimpanzee with sunglasses on, or some similar investment (although given the implosion of recent weeks, even that seems unlikely), but I really do not think they are envisaging using it in the supermarket or the fast food outlet.
