A new survey suggests more Americans favor Bitcoin over gold for national reserves, raising questions about shifting trust in digital vs. traditional assets
The Nakamoto Project’s survey, which suggested that eight out of ten Americans support the U.S. selling a portion of its gold reserves to purchase Bitcoin, elicited criticism.
The U.S. crypto reserve remains a contentious issue, as evidenced by the responses to a recent survey. On May 20, the Nakamoto Project, a non-profit organization that advocates for Bitcoin (BTC), asserted that one-fourth of Americans believe the United States should convert at least a portion of its gold reserves into Bitcoin.
Nevertheless, the results promptly prompted inquiries regarding the survey’s methodology.
The survey had 3,345 respondents, according to Troy Cross, Chief Editor at the Nakamoto Project. To guarantee that the results were representative, these were chosen to align with the U.S. census regarding critical demographic variables, such as age, gender, and ethnicity.
Respondents were requested to specify the proportion of gold reserves that the United States should convert to Bitcoin. They were given a slider to select any value between 0% and 100% to represent their response.
“Assuming the United States was thinking of converting some of their gold reserve into Bitcoin, what percentage would you advise they convert?,” was the exact survey question.
The Bitcoin reserve survey has been criticized for its misleading query.
The methodology was promptly subjected to scrutiny, even within the crypto community. The use of a selector was criticized by many individuals, who suggested that a yes-or-no question would have been more meaningful. Jan Wüstenfeld, the lead researcher at Melanion GreenTech, dismissed the design as “unfortunate.”
“The way you framed it and set it up, you effectively pushed people to answer with a non-zero allocation,” Wüstenfeld wrote. “You say it yourself: People are reluctant to set a slider at zero.”
Troy Cross of the Nakamoto Project acknowledged the framing effects but emphasized that the survey yielded valuable results. For example, women recommended smaller allocations than males, while younger individuals preferred larger allocations.
