According to a Wells Fargo/Gallup poll published on July 27, only 2% of the U.S investors are currently invested in Bitcoin, and 72 percent “have no interest in ever buying” it.  

The results came out after the conduct of the second-quarter Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index survey, through the Gallup Panel.

Though it has been almost a decade since Bitcoin was invented in 2009, the interest of investors in the currency or the so-called “digital gold” has not grown a lot. The survey further reports that only 1% of the investors are likely to invest in it in the near future whereas 26% are still intrigued by it.

Bitcoin has repeatedly failed to establish itself as a currency and is rather known as a speculative investment tool. The report by Gallup mentions,

“Limiting bitcoin’s popularity as an investment, only about three in 10 investors (29%) say they know something about digital currencies. Most of the rest — 67% — say they have heard of these currencies but don’t know much about them, while 5% have not heard of them.”

Most of the investors seem to value security over growth as 3 in 4 (75%) investors regard Bitcoin as a ‘very risky’ investment, while 23% said that it is ‘somewhat risky’.

The involvement and interest in Bitcoin also depend largely upon a person’s gender and age. Most of the women and senior investors have little knowledge about Bitcoin as compared to men and senior investors.

“Related to the age differences, investors with less than $100,000 in investments (who tend to be younger) are more likely to be familiar with the innovation than those with higher asset levels.”

Concluding the findings of the report, it is clearly evident that the currency is still in its early stages and has a lot of room to grow. Bitcoin, often compared to gold only has a market cap of $121 billion at the time of writing this article, whereas gold itself is worth ___. Apparently, Bitcoin has a long way to go.

While Bitcoin may be a lucrative asset for experienced traders, the volatility of Bitcoin as compared to other forms of assets is perhaps the greatest fear of anyone entering this space. However, as more and more young investors are intrigued by it, it is likely that they’ll invest into Bitcoin once the market becomes a bit more mature.