Men under 50 shoring up US cryptocurrency market: Pew Research

The Pew Research Center’s latest U.S. cryptocurrency report, published April 10, shows little in the way of surprises when it comes to the nation’s adoption and confidence in the burgeoning crypto market. 

Perhaps the biggest takeaway is Pew’s finding that 75% of U.S. adults who’ve heard of cryptocurrency have little or no confidence in their safety and reliability.

That statistic may not express the actual sentiment of the average cryptocurrency investor, however, as adoption rates vary wildly by age and gender, with men ages 18 to 50 providing the bulk of U.S. cryptocurrency market movement.

What data says about the state of crypto: NEW survey from @pewresearch shows a majority of Americans don’t have confidence in the safety of crypto, some former users no longer have crypto and 45% say their investment has done worse than they expected https://t.co/0QyDHAoWgK pic.twitter.com/IYt8a12nBp

— Lee Rainie (@lrainie) April 10, 2023

The survey featured numerous questions relating to U.S. cryptocurrency sentiment across age, race, and gender demographics (the study’s methodology points out that certain minority groups were oversampled to reflect correct population proportions) with responses gathered from 10,071 study participants.

Related: Nearly half of US adults say their crypto punts are worse than expected: Survey

Those identifying as women and study participants over age 50 expressed the weakest sentiment with only 10% and 8% of either demographic respectively having purchased at least some cryptocurrency. By contrast, about one in four US adult men have invested in at least one.

Also of note, cryptocurrency use in the U.S. continues to differ by race. Per the report, “Some 24% of Asian adults and 21% of Black or Hispanic adults say they have ever invested in or used a cryptocurrency, compared with 14% of White adults.”

Other areas meriting mention — and, perhaps, concern — include the fact that, juxtaposed against previous Pew Center research, U.S. cryptocurrency adoption rates appear to be stalling out with only 16% of participants claiming to have tried crypto for the first time in the last year and only a single percentage increase in total adoption between 2021 and 2023.

On the bright side, the study indicates that around two-thirds of all U.S. adults who’ve invested in cryptocurrency continue to hold at least some.