Australians think Elon Musk created bitcoin

As more Aussies rush to buy bitcoin, new research has uncovered a startling lack of knowledge about the cryptocurrency, including who created it and how to buy it.

Fred Schebesta, the co-founder of cryptocurrency broker service HiveEx.com and comparison website Finder.com.

More than half (56 per cent) of Australians think Elon Musk created the digital currency bitcoin, while more than two in five (44 per cent) wrongly think the supply of bitcoin is unlimited.

That’s according to a survey from comparison app and website Finder, which on Wednesday launched new functionality to make it easier for Australians to buy and sell bitcoin using its app.

According to Finder co-founder Fred Schebesta, the survey of 1,004 people revealed that 25 per cent either own or plan to own cryptocurrency by the end of the year. Despite this one in five (20 per cent) don’t know how to buy it.

Cryptocurrency in the middle of a record-breaking run and is up 300 per cent since the beginning of the year.

“Right now it‘s just too hard to buy bitcoin, and we wanted to make it incredibly simple to do,” Mr Schebesta said in an interview.

“We‘ve removed all the complexity and with the Finder app you can buy a bitcoin in three minutes. You sign up, enter your details, deposit your money, that’s it.”

Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, but not Bitcoin, in Washington, DC. Picture: AFP

The executive described bitcoin as the “beginning of the future of finance” and said there’s a general lack of understanding among the Australian public as to its true potential.

“It’s a miraculous self-running form of money and store of wealth for people, it’s actually a miracle,” he said. ”This is just the beginning.”

Bitcoin was created 10 years ago by someone – or a group of people – under the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto”, the identity of whom has never been revealed.

Mr Schebesta – who predicts bitcoin will hit $US250,000 per coin by 2023, compared to its current price of around $US40,000 – is putting his money where his mouth is, allowing all Finder employees to have up to 25 per cent of their salaries paid in cryptocurrency.

“We‘re very comfortable with that, it’s just normal for us,” he said. “People in Finder are very passionate about cryptocurrency, and we get asked by them all the time to be paid in bitcoin.

“I think more Australian companies are going to want to pay their employee in bitcoin, and they can do that with the help of the Finder app, if they want to give us a call we can help them with that.

Cryptocurrency fans have counted Tesla boss Elon Musk as among their champions, but this week he rocked their world by questioning the future of the digital assets and singling out carbon emissions from bitcoin mining for particular criticism. Picture: AFP

“Australians are very concerned about their money right now and they want to save money, and hopefully Finder can be that safe place that they can do that.”

He added he was unconcerned by recent price volatility, triggered by tweets from Elon Musk and provocative comments made by China.

“The current dip is just a short term thing. The price of bitcoin has moved because China said something, or Elon said something, or another government said something, but those things always forgotten.

“We‘re in this for the long haul.”

The news comes as Australian cryptocurrency exchange CoinJar announced on Wednesday its partnership with the Melbourne Football Club, a move it said made it the first crypto company to sponsor an AFL club for both its men’s and women’s teams.