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Finder’s Cryptocurrency Adoption Index measures cryptocurrency adoption in the United States through a quarterly survey.
Key US crypto adoption trends from our October 2023 survey
US crypto ownership
38.4M American adults own crypto.
Gender split
US men are 1.14x more likely than women to own crypto.
Men 53%
Women 47%
Most-owned crypto
68% of American crypto owners hold ₿itcoin.
Cryptocurrency adoption statistics in the US
Currently, 15% of Americans own cryptocurrency, which is down from 18%, as reported in our April 2023 survey.
Our data shows that the majority of Americans have yet to invest in cryptocurrency and don’t plan to do so.
Is cryptocurrency a good investment?
Almost three quarters of our respondents (73%) feel cryptocurrency isn’t a good investment, while 27% feel it is.
More women than men feel cryptocurrency is a good investment.
This is the first time in the five times we’ve conducted this survey that a higher percentage of women than men reported that they feel crypto is a good investment.
29% of the women polled feel cryptocurrency is a good investment, while only 25% of the men polled feel it is.
Crypto is a young person’s game
Just 5% of Baby Boomers and 17% of Gen X say cryptocurrency is a good investment compared to close to half of both Gen Y (42%) and Gen Z (48%).
Higher percentages of Baby Boomers and Gen X reported that they believe crypto is a good investment in this survey compared to our April 2023 survey, while the percentages were lower for Gen Y and Gen Z in this survey compared to the April 2023 survey.
Popular cryptocurrencies in the US
Bitcoin (BTC) remains the most-held cryptocurrency, with 68% of American crypto owners holding it. Ether (ETH) comes in second, with 42% of Americans who own crypto holding it.
First cryptocurrency purchase
BTC is the entry point for the majority of crypto owners.
Total investment in crypto
Until July 2023, the average amount of US dollars our respondents say they had invested in cryptocurrency consistently doubled.
However, this average amount got more than cut in half from July 2023 to October 2023.
Investment style
The largest portion of our respondents (47%) are investing about the same as they were six months ago, while 44% are investing more conservatively.
Only 8% are investing more adventurously than they were.
Reasons for not investing in cryptocurrency
“I think crypto is a scam” is the most common reason given by our respondents for why they don’t own crypto. While the percentage of respondents who felt that crypto is a scam had been on the decline in the previous two surveys, this number is once again on the rise.
How long have you been invested in crypto?
Almost half of our respondents (45%) have only been investing in crypto for 1 to 2 years. Just under a third (30%) have been investing for 3 to 4 years.
Crypto custody
The majority of our respondents (68%) hold their crypto in a self-custody wallet, also referred to as a non-custodial wallet.
Methodology
Finder’s Consumer Confidence Index is an ongoing quarterly nationally representative survey, so far polling more than 8,000 American adults, asking questions relating to household finances. First collected October 4-19, 2022, with the second run of the survey running between January 9 to February 17, 2023, April 11-20, 2023 and most recently July 6-18, 2023.
Our data is based on an online survey of 2,056 US adults commissioned by Finder and conducted by Qualtrics/SAP from July 6-18, 2023, with representative quotas for gender, age and states.
We assume the 2,056 participants in our survey represent the US population of 260.9 million Americans who are at least 18 years old, according to the July 2022 US Census Bureau population estimate. This assumption is made at the 95% confidence level with a 2% margin of error.
Our survey asked people a range of crypto-related questions, including whether they thought crypto was a good investment, what crypto-related products they own and how much money they gave invested in cryptocurrencies. A full list of questions can be found on Finder’s Consumer Confidence Index.
We define generations by birth year according to the Pew Research Center’s generational guidelines, though we’ve combined baby boomers and the Silent Generation into a single group for sampling ease:
Gen Z — any adults born post-1997
Millennials — 1981–1996
Gen X — 1965–1980
Baby boomers — anyone born pre-1964
We define geographical regions as defined by the US Census Bureau.
Frank Corva is a cryptocurrency writer and analyst for digital assets at Finder. Frank has turned his hobby of studying and writing about crypto into a career with a mission of educating the world about this burgeoning sector of finance. He worked in Ghana and Venezuela before earning a degree in applied linguistics at Teachers College, Columbia University. He also taught writing and entertainment business courses in Japan and worked with UNICEF in Namibia before returning to the US to teach at universities in New York City. Earlier in his career, he spent years working as a publicist and graphic designer for record labels like Warner Music Group and Triple Crown Records. During that time, he was also a music journalist whose writing and photography was in published in Alternative Press, Spin and other outlets.
According to our recent survey, a whopping 92.05% of us haven’t invested in cryptocurrency yet. But with crypto in the headlines and on the lips of “experts” — why not?
Thank you for the question! Unfortunately, we have only conducted analysis for US residents. We don’t currently have analysis for other countries in this particular report.
Hi Frank,
Thanks for your helpful information and your hard working. It’s been good research so far but I can’t find this report anymore: “Key Hongkonger crypto adoption trends in our January 2022 report”
Could you please send me again the link of it? Much appreciated.
Hi, Roberto — Thanks for leaving a comment. I’m not exactly sure what you are referencing, but we are about to update our “Global Crypto Regulations” piece (https://www.finder.com/global-cryptocurrency-regulations), which may have some of the information you’re looking for.
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Is there the same analysis for countries such as India, Italy, Germany, and France? Where can I find it?
Thank you for the question! Unfortunately, we have only conducted analysis for US residents. We don’t currently have analysis for other countries in this particular report.
Hi Frank,
Thanks for your helpful information and your hard working. It’s been good research so far but I can’t find this report anymore: “Key Hongkonger crypto adoption trends in our January 2022 report”
Could you please send me again the link of it? Much appreciated.
Thank you for getting in touch. Unfortunately, we had to take the Hong Kong page down. For now, we only have the US crypto adoption index page up.
Where can I see the complete 2023 Crypto Adoption Index for the 26 countries?
Hi, Roberto — Thanks for leaving a comment. I’m not exactly sure what you are referencing, but we are about to update our “Global Crypto Regulations” piece (https://www.finder.com/global-cryptocurrency-regulations), which may have some of the information you’re looking for.