There were many limitations and self-criticism is encountered as the dataset was analysed. For instance, quantitative data yielded inconclusive results which meant that patchy and incomplete pathway diagrams. If better methodology or questionnaire design was formulated or a more potent roll-out strategy implemented it would help focus the questions and create complete diagrams. Furthermore, qualitative and quantitative data gathering was performed simultaneously which could have diluted the research focus. A stepped approach first utilising qualitative interviews to identify problem areas could be applied before administering the qualitative questionnaires. Another approach may be a wider preliminary/pilot quantitative questionnaire to be administered to iron out the creases or focusing researched areas before a full investigation went underway.
On collecting qualitative data, Tweet Deck was used to help target users of Bitcoin in the Twitter community. Although this meant that Bitcoin users could be specifically targeted it also limited the field which the respondents came from thus only a sector of the digital currency community was sampled. Further, the current social and political sentiments mean that some Bitcoin users may be weary of participating in research in a bid to preserve anonymity/ fear of security which may skew results obtained.
The general condition of Bitcoin is still in the infancy of the technology adoption lifecycle (TAL) so a population familiar with the currency was difficult to find. The researcher felt it would not be potent to survey individual’s with no knowledge of Bitcoin, these two scenarios compounded meant that the participants sought were generally the first-adopters of an already small and tech-savvy community (who are already usually first-adopters of technology). Gaining responses from the first-adopters of first-adopters many yield results unrepresentative of the general population. Therefore business insights developed may be relevant to the Bitcoin community currently but as the entity matures in lifecycle a different strategy may be more appropriate for the change in characteristics of the users. Establishing the current state of Bitcoin and modelling possible future acceptance along with future customer demographics may be a rich area for future research.
In line with the research conducted in this paper the other external and internal factors described in Salo & Karjaluoto’s (2007) model using the same participants in order to draw a complete picture of trust in Bitcoin is a worthwhile pursuit. Limitations of this are temporal as the market, political, environmental, social and technological environment would have developed thus limiting this paper’s conclusion as a snapshot in time.
During interviews it was stated by some that Bitcoin is not totally technology if this is taken into account it would mean that the technology acceptance model (TAM) is inappropriate for this research field. Bitcoin as a currency, may have a wider range of social factors not apparent to mere technological devices. Therefore, more ambitiously models in digital currency generally could be developed as a future projects.
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