3 Out of 4 Americans Have Never Heard Of An ICO, 68% Have No Knowledge of Ethereum

Cryptocurrencies may have a market cap of $182 billion USD, and initial coin offerings (ICOs) may have surpassed venture capital as a means of raising early-stage money, but most Americans still have very little clue about either.

68.4% of Americans have never heard of Ethereum, Bitcoin’s little brother, according to a LendEDU survey.

LendEDU

21% of Americans believe that investing in an ICO is illegal.

There is currently about $30 billion of Ethereum circulating, although the price fluctuates constantly. After massive gains in recent months, there is almost $110 billion of Bitcoin in circulation. Bitcoin is much better known: 78.6% of Americans have heard of Bitcoin.

While 25% of Americans have heard of ICOs, an almost equal number — 21% — thought that investing in them was illegal in the U.S. 61% were unsure if ICOs were illegal or not. (Interestingly, 11% of Americans believe that owning Bitcoin is illegal in the U.S.)

As you might expect, young people are more savvy about cryptocurrency than older. Only 13% of Americans over the age of 55 have heard of Ethereum, while the majority of Americans aged 18-24 have: 58.5%.

Unsurprisingly considering the numbers, only 15% of respondents said they were planning on investing in an ICO.

LendEDU’s survey was conducted by OnePoll, and included 1,000 Americas age 18 and older.