Evaluation of the Cryptocurrency Adoption Decision Using Hierarchical Decision Modeling (HDM)

In the recent years, there has been a massive attention toward cryptocurrency. The development of the blockchain technology has enabled the cryptocurrency to invade the financial industry by providing, to some extent, an alternative banking system with extra benefits such as lower cost of transaction, faster transaction processing, and higher level of privacy. Bitcoin is the first completely decentralized digital currency to exist in the cryptocurrency market. People have adopted cryptocurrency for several reasons. This adoption is a purchasing decision where the users make the adoption decision based on set of factors that matter to them. This paper aims at evaluating the factors impacting the cryptocurrency adoption decision. To do so, we have identified the factors that the users consider when making the purchasing decision based on a comprehensive review of recent literature and expert's inputs. The objectives of the paper are to: (1) identify the factors impacting the adoption decision, (2) and determine the ranking of these factors based on the quantification of users' judgments. This paper proposes a Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) to understand the users' decision to adopt cryptocurrency. The model suggests four main perspectives that influence the adoption decision namely: economic, technical, social, and personal. Every perspective consists of set of related criteria. We then used the pairwise comparison method to assess the importance of the perspectives and criteria to the overall objective of the model. The findings of this study suggest that users evaluate and make their decision mostly from economic and social perspectives. The top criteria found to influence the cryptocurrency adoption decision are the investment opportunity, subjective norms, businesses acceptance, privacy, and global attention. This paper provides insights into the factors impacting the adoption decision and their importance level. It also helps the cryptocurrency developers to understand the consumers' adoption criteria to encourage cryptocurrency adoption.