More Americans say they have tried cryptocurrency than a year ago, but the latest survey suggests that much of the increase reflects people who have since stopped using it. According to Decrypt, 22% of U.S. adults have ever owned or used crypto, compared with 18% in 2025, while the proportion using it during the past 12 months remained unchanged at 13%.
Crypto’s reach expands, while current use stalls
The figures come from a national Ipsos survey conducted for the DeFi Education Fund, a crypto policy advocacy group. Ipsos questioned 1,545 adults between September 8 and 16 through its KnowledgePanel, a probability-based panel also used by the Federal Reserve for its annual household-finance survey. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
The gap between lifetime and recent use is the survey’s clearest signal. Among respondents who had not used crypto in the previous year, 11% said they had owned or used it at some point, up from 5% in 2025. That means the rise in people with any crypto experience came largely from former users rather than a comparable increase in active participation.
Intentions to enter the market also changed little. Seventeen percent said they were likely to own or use crypto in the future, versus 16% a year earlier.
Usage differed significantly by demographic group. Men were more than twice as likely as women to report using crypto in the past year, at 18% and 8%, respectively. Adults younger than 60 were also much more likely to have used it than older Americans. Among those who had owned crypto, curiosity was the most frequently cited reason, at 34%, followed by long-term investment at 25%.
Distrust of finance does not translate into crypto confidence
The survey found broad concerns about the conventional financial system. Only 19% of respondents described it as secure, while 63% said it needs an upgrade to address threats including cybercrime and artificial intelligence. Six in 10 expressed concern about data breaches at major financial institutions, and 54% questioned whether those institutions are prepared to protect personal information from AI-driven threats. Financial privacy was important to 74%.
Despite that dissatisfaction, respondents showed limited confidence in crypto-based alternatives. Only 4% reported high trust in crypto exchanges, and 5% said the same about decentralized platforms. By comparison, large national banks received a high-trust rating from 42%, while credit unions led at 48%, although that figure was five percentage points lower than last year.
The survey’s results come amid continuing security concerns across digital finance. Ledger, a maker of crypto wallets, said all confirmed cases in a suspected $87 million drain involved hardware wallets sold by a reseller in Southeast Asia. Separately, Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, warned that advances in AI could threaten the cryptography used to secure Bitcoin and Ethereum sooner than expected.
These issues help explain why dissatisfaction with traditional institutions has not automatically produced greater acceptance of crypto. Respondents may see weaknesses in the existing system while remaining uncertain about the security, reliability or safeguards offered by crypto services.
DeFi interest is higher than understanding
The polling also showed a substantial knowledge gap around decentralized finance, commonly called DeFi. The term refers to crypto-based financial applications that allow users to buy, sell or borrow digital assets without traditional third-party intermediaries.
Only 2% of Americans said they were very familiar with DeFi. Just 6% could identify all four characteristics of crypto included in the questionnaire, while 35% were unsure how to describe crypto at all.
At the same time, potential interest was considerably higher than current knowledge. Forty percent said they would be at least somewhat likely to try DeFi if it were available. Among that group, more than eight in 10 said they would use it to save money, earn interest, or send money to relatives and friends.
Interest in learning about specific crypto topics has nevertheless weakened. The share wanting to learn about stablecoins declined to 7% from 11%, while interest in learning about DeFi fell to 8% from 11%. The changes came even after the GENIUS Act established federal rules for stablecoins, digital tokens generally designed to maintain a stable value relative to an underlying asset.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data at the stated times show mixed performance among the listed crypto assets:
- FUNToken (FUN) was priced at $0.0089182414, up 1.62% over 24 hours and 0.08% over seven days, as of October 25, 2026, at 22:39 +03:30.
- Open Campus (EDU) stood at $0.0592858853, down 3.07% in 24 hours and 16.87% over seven days at the same time.
- Ore (ORE) traded at $164.7502665491, up 4.48% over 24 hours and 56.42% over seven days at the same time.
- Catizen (CATI) was $0.0638818524, down 0.09% over 24 hours and 6.41% over seven days, based on Moneyiar data from October 12, 2026, at 11:43 +03:30.
The survey does not measure these individual tokens. Its findings instead provide a broader view of public participation and confidence: more Americans have experience with crypto, but recent use, future intentions and trust remain comparatively limited.
