MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/. More than half of Russians know what bitcoin is, but only 9% are interested in buying this cryptocurrency, an opinion poll carried out by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center showed on Thursday.

"Over half of Russians (56%) are aware of bitcoins (however, only 13% know in detail) and another 14% have heard only the term," the survey says. "In general, we can say that bitcoins have not become popular among our fellow citizens: two-thirds of Russians, who have heard about them (67%), believe that investing in bitcoins is unprofitable, and just 9% believe they might buy them in the future."

Sociologists say the respondents have poor knowledge about bitcoins. Some 27% think that not everyone can buy this cryptocurrency, and another 16% say it is outlawed in Russia. Some 29% of Russians know that anyone can buy and also mine bitcoins themselves.

More Russians seem to know about using bitcoins for purchasing goods and services (40% and 44%, respectively). However, the Russian citizens are divided on whether it is easy to steal bitcoins. Some 36% think this is a hard nut to crack, while 33% do not think so.

The nation’s leading polling agency conducted surveys on December 28-29, 2017 based on phone interviews with 1,200 respondents above 18 years of age. The margin of error does not exceed 3.5% at the 95% confidence level.

Bitcoin is a decentralized system based on blockchain technology, which any user participating in the system can ‘mine’ (emit) by creating new blocks of the structure using a computing device. The system’s concept was first published in November 2008 by its author (or probably a group of authors) under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin’s popularity, though, reached its peak just over the last several years. Its emission is naturally limited, and right now, the bulk of bitcoins have already been ‘mined’.