Americans want to ditch gold reserves for Bitcoin? New survey raises eyebrows

A survey by the Nakamoto Project attracted criticism after indicating that 8 out of 10 Americans want the U.S. to sell some of its gold reserves to buy Bitcoin.

The U.S. crypto reserve continues to be a divisive issue, as revealed by the reactions to one recent survey. On May 20, the Nakamoto Project, a pro-Bitcoin (BTC) non-profit organization, claimed that one in four Americans want the U.S. to convert at least some of its gold reserves into Bitcoin. However, the findings quickly raised questions about the survey’s methodology.

Troy Cross, Chief Editor at the Nakamoto Project, explained that the survey had 3,345 respondents. These were selected to match the U.S. census by key demographic points, including age, gender, and race, to ensure the results were representative.

Nakamoto Project survey on converting gold reserves to Bitcoin | Source: X

Respondents were asked what percentage of gold reserves the U.S. should convert into Bitcoin. They were given a slider to select any value between 0% and 100% to indicate their answer.

“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.

Bitcoin reserve survey criticized for leading question

The methodology quickly drew scrutiny, even within crypto circles. Many criticized the use of a slider and suggested that a yes-or-no question would have been more meaningful. Jan Wüstenfeld, lead researcher at Melanion GreenTech, called the design “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.”

Nakamoto Project’s Troy Cross acknowledged the framing effects, but pointed out that the survey still gave valuable results. For instance, younger people favored bigger allocations, while women recommended smaller allocations than men.