Crypto Demographics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Sarah Davis | Last updated: October 27, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
In South Korea’s H1 2026 exchange data, Korean investors aged 60 and over hold 8.8% of tradable crypto accounts but 20.0% of accounts worth ₩100 million to ₩1 billion. Axis Intelligence Research finds a Crypto Age–Wealth Ratio (CAWR) of 2.27 for that cohort. For investors in their 20s and younger, the CAWR is 0.11.
Quick Answer
About one in five U.S. adults (19%) have ever used crypto, per Pew Research Center (January 2026), but only 9% own it today, per Gallup (June 2026). Ownership skews male by about 2.5 to 1. Younger adults are the most likely to own crypto, but larger balances sit with older holders. Axis Intelligence Research finds that Koreans aged 50 and over hold 54.3% of large crypto accounts.
Key Findings
- Pew Research Center reports that 19% of U.S. adults had ever invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency as of January 2026, up from 16% in 2021.
- Gallup’s June 2026 survey found U.S. crypto ownership fell to 9% of adults, from 14% in June 2025.
- Axis Intelligence Research’s analysis of Federal Reserve SHED 2025 microdata finds that 45.7% of U.S. adults who used crypto in 2025 were aged 30 to 49, against 22.8% aged 18 to 29.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds that Korean investors aged 50 and over hold 29.0% of tradable crypto accounts but 54.3% of accounts worth ₩100 million to ₩1 billion (H1 2026).
- The UK Financial Conduct Authority found that only 5% of current UK crypto users bought for the first time after October 2024 (fieldwork August–September 2025).
How Many Americans Own Crypto in 2026?
The number you get depends on the question asked. Four U.S. measures published in 2026 put crypto use somewhere between 9% and 19% of adults. They differ because they define the user differently, not because three of them are wrong.
The U.S. measurement ladder: four definitions, four answers
| Measure | What it counts | Share of U.S. adults | Field period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ever invested, traded or used | Any lifetime contact | 19% | Jan 20–26, 2026 | Pew Research Center |
| Household panel ownership | Holdings reported in a consumer panel | ~12% | 2025 | Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, WP 26-16 |
| Used for any purpose in the past year | Investing, paying or sending, 12 months | 10% | Oct 2025 | Federal Reserve SHED 2025 |
| Currently own | Holding at the time of the poll | 9% | Jun 1–15, 2026 | Gallup |
Axis Intelligence Research publishes these four numbers next to each other and does not average them. They measure different things. Pew Research Center asks whether someone has ever touched crypto, so anyone who bought a little in 2021 and sold it still counts. Gallup asks whether someone owns crypto now. The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED) covers use over the previous 12 months.
Is crypto ownership rising or falling?
Lifetime use is rising and current ownership is falling. Pew’s “ever used” share rose from 16% in 2021 to 19% in 2026. Gallup’s current-ownership figure fell from 14% to 9% of adults in a single year, June 2025 to June 2026. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that as a 35.7% relative decline in one year. Among investors, defined by Gallup as adults with at least $10,000 in investable assets, ownership went from 17% to 11%, a 35.3% relative drop.
The Federal Reserve’s series moves differently: 12% in 2021, 10% in 2022, 7% in 2023, 8% in 2024 and 10% in 2025.
Sarah Davis: The gap between “ever” and “now” is the most important figure on this page. Between Pew’s 19% and Gallup’s 9% sit about ten points of adults who bought, held through a drawdown and sold, or who tried a payment app once. Gallup fielded its 2026 poll with bitcoin near $59,000. An ownership question asked after a price slide picks up recent sellers, and an “ever used” question cannot. If a deck pitches you “one in five Americans” as the addressable market, ask which question produced that number.
Crypto Ownership by Age: Who Are the Youngest and Oldest Holders?
Younger adults are the most likely to own crypto in every 2026 survey reviewed here. The detail sits in the 30-to-49 bracket, which now matches or exceeds adults under 30.
U.S. crypto use by age group (Pew, January 2026)
| Age group | Ever used crypto | Men | Women | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18–29 | 26% | 38% | 15% | Pew Research Center |
| 30–49 | 28% | 40% | 17% | Pew Research Center |
| 50+ | 10% | 14% | 6% | Pew Research Center |
Men aged 30 to 49 have the highest rate of crypto use, 40%, of any age-and-gender group Pew reports. Men aged 18 to 29 are at 38%. That ordering matters for the “crypto is for Gen Z” story. Pew’s oldest-cohort figure is also high enough to count: one in ten Americans aged 50 and older has used crypto.
The UK shows the same age skew. The Financial Conduct Authority’s 2025 consumer research found 15% of UK adults aged 18 to 34 hold crypto, against 8% of all adults.
Is the typical crypto investor getting older?
Account data from South Korea’s regulator suggests yes. The Financial Services Commission’s H1 2026 virtual asset survey, released October 1, 2026, reports that the most common age group among Korean crypto account holders moved from people in their 30s to people in their 40s. According to the survey’s detailed tables, people in their 40s held 26.9% of tradable accounts at the end of June 2026, and people in their 30s held 26.7%.
Over six months, the youngest group lost share and people in their 50s gained it:
| Korean age group | Share of accounts, H2 2025 | Share of accounts, H1 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20s and under | 19% | 17.4% | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey |
| 30s | 26.8% | 26.7% | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey |
| 40s | 26.7% | 26.9% | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey |
| 50s | 19% | 20.2% | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey |
| 60 and over | 9% | 8.8% | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey |
The FSC publishes the H2 2025 shares rounded, as shown.
Korea’s data also show more women among older account holders. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that women hold 34.6% of Korean tradable crypto accounts. Among people in their 20s and under, women hold 27.3% of accounts. Among people aged 60 and over, they hold 43.4%.
In the Nordics, K33 Research’s 2026 adoption survey estimates that the largest growth in ownership came from people aged 40 to 49.
Sarah Davis: Exchanges have aimed their marketing at 25-year-olds for six years. The order book is moving somewhere else. A 45-year-old with a salary and a brokerage account handles fees differently from a 22-year-old on a promo link. They notice the spread, they ask about custody, and they want a tax statement. Platforms that still price for impulse trading will lose these people to bitcoin ETFs inside their existing brokerage. In that setup the fee doesn’t disappear. It shows up as an expense ratio. Our crypto exchange fees benchmark shows how much that difference can come to.
Who Uses Crypto in the U.S.? Federal Reserve Microdata by Age, Gender, Income and Race
The Federal Reserve’s published SHED report gives crypto use for the whole adult population only, with no breakdown by age, gender or income. Axis Intelligence Research produced that breakdown from the SHED 2025 public-use microdata: 12,934 respondents surveyed in October 2025, weighted with the Fed’s own survey weight. The tables below are not available in the Fed’s report.
The microdata reproduce the Fed’s published totals. Weighted, 9.5% of adults used crypto for any purpose (published as 10%), 8.8% as an investment (published as 9%) and 2.4% for payments or for sending money.
Crypto use by age group (Federal Reserve SHED 2025 microdata)
| Age group | Used crypto, any purpose | As an investment | For payments or sending money | Respondents (n) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18–24 | 10.0% | 8.4% | 4.2% | 1,000 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| 25–34 | 12.5% | 11.2% | 4.3% | 1,886 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| 35–44 | 14.1% | 13.0% | 3.7% | 2,207 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| 45–54 | 11.2% | 10.9% | 1.6% | 1,839 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| 55–64 | 7.6% | 7.2% | 1.1% | 2,361 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| 65–74 | 4.3% | 4.2% | 0.6% | 2,254 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| 75+ | 2.8% | 2.7% | 0.4% | 1,387 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
Axis Intelligence Research finds that crypto use in the U.S. peaks among adults aged 35 to 44, at 14.1%, not among adults under 25 (10.0%). The Federal Reserve sample therefore confirms Pew’s finding with a different survey and a different question. Using the same three age bands as Pew, 13.3% of adults aged 30 to 49 used crypto in 2025, compared with 10.9% of those aged 18 to 29 and 6.4% of those 50 and over.
| Age group | Men | Women | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18–29 | 15.0% | 7.1% | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| 30–49 | 18.6% | 8.2% | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| 50+ | 8.8% | 4.2% | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
Who is the typical U.S. crypto user?
Axis Intelligence Research finds that 45.7% of U.S. adults who used crypto in 2025 were aged 30 to 49, 31.4% were 50 or older and 22.8% were 18 to 29. Men made up 67.1% of users. Half of all users (50.7%) lived in households earning $100,000 or more.
Crypto investors and crypto payers come from different income groups
Investing and paying with crypto pull in opposite directions by income. Investment use rises with income: 11.5% of adults in $100,000+ households invested in crypto in 2025, against 6.0% of those under $25,000. Transactional use, meaning buying something or sending money, runs the other way: 4.1% of adults under $25,000, against 1.8% at $100,000 and over.
| Household income | Used crypto, any purpose | As an investment | For payments or sending money | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $25,000 | 7.6% | 6.0% | 4.1% | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| $25,000–$49,999 | 8.0% | 6.6% | 3.5% | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| $50,000–$99,999 | 8.2% | 7.8% | 1.5% | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| $100,000 or more | 11.9% | 11.5% | 1.8% | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
Unbanked adults use crypto at the same overall rate as banked adults (9.5% versus 9.6%), but for different purposes. In the microdata, 5.7% of unbanked adults used crypto for payments or for sending money, against 2.2% of banked adults. This matches the Fed’s published 6% versus 2%. Among adults who used crypto to send money to friends or family, 32.7% made an international transfer.
Crypto use by race, ethnicity and education
| Group | Used crypto, any purpose | Respondents (n) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asian | 14.1% | 658 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| Black | 12.0% | 1,509 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| Hispanic | 10.5% | 1,758 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| White | 8.1% | 8,650 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| Bachelor’s degree or more | 11.6% | 5,512 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
| High school degree or GED | 7.7% | 3,032 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
These rates follow the same order as Pew’s January 2026 results, but on a measure of the past 12 months rather than lifetime use.
Sarah Davis: The income split is the point a product team should take from this. Two different customers sit behind “crypto users”. The affluent investor in their late thirties wants low spreads, custody and a tax statement. The lower-income payer wants a cheap transfer, often across a border, and pays whatever the on-ramp charges. The second customer is smaller in number but more exposed to fees, because the same spread weighs more on rent money sent home than on a portfolio sleeve. Our stablecoin statistics track where the money is moving.
The Crypto Age–Wealth Ratio (CAWR): Where the Money Actually Sits
Ownership rates count people. They say nothing about money. The Crypto Age–Wealth Ratio (CAWR) is an Axis Intelligence Research metric that compares how much of the large balances an age group holds with how much of the account base it makes up.
Formula: CAWR = (age group’s share of accounts holding ₩100M to <₩1B) ÷ (age group’s share of all tradable accounts).
A CAWR above 1.0 means the cohort is over-represented among large accounts. Below 1.0 means it holds many small accounts. South Korea is the input market because it is the only large market where a regulator publishes account counts by age and balance band from the same survey.
CAWR by age group, South Korea, H1 2026
| Age group | Share of all tradable accounts | Large accounts (₩100M–<₩1B) | Share of large accounts | CAWR | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20s and under | 17.4% | 2,000 | 1.9% | 0.11 | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey; Axis calculation |
| 30s | 26.7% | 15,000 | 14.3% | 0.54 | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey; Axis calculation |
| 40s | 26.9% | 31,000 | 29.5% | 1.10 | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey; Axis calculation |
| 50s | 20.2% | 36,000 | 34.3% | 1.70 | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey; Axis calculation |
| 60 and over | 8.8% | 21,000 | 20.0% | 2.27 | FSC/FIU H1 2026 survey; Axis calculation |
Axis Intelligence Research finds that Koreans under 40 hold 44.1% of tradable crypto accounts but only 16.2% of accounts worth ₩100 million to ₩1 billion. Among those 50 and over, the pattern reverses: 29.0% of accounts, 54.3% of the large ones.
The pattern holds, and is sharper, at the very top. The FSC counts 3,275 accounts holding ₩1 billion or more. People aged 50 and over hold 56.9% of them: 1,077 accounts held by people in their 50s and 787 by people 60 and over. Axis Intelligence Research calculates a CAWR of 2.73 for people aged 60 and over in the ₩1 billion-plus band, against 0.10 for people in their 20s and under (56 accounts).
The small end of the market is getting more crowded. According to the FSC, 8.63 million of the 11.175 million tradable accounts held less than ₩1 million at the end of June 2026. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that as 77.2% of all accounts, up from 74.2% six months earlier. The number of accounts holding ₩1 billion or more fell from 6,860 in the previous survey to 3,275, a 52.3% decline, while the total value of crypto on Korean exchanges fell from ₩87.2 trillion to ₩58.9 trillion.
Sarah Davis: A CAWR of 2.27 for Koreans over 60 means a platform’s revenue and its user count describe two different populations. The 20-somethings bring the volume of sign-ups, and the over-50s bring the assets under custody. If you are building a retail product, set custody, inheritance and tax reporting by the CAWR. Set onboarding by the age distribution. Mixing the two up is how a firm ends up running a TikTok campaign for a customer who reads the annual report.
Crypto Ownership by Gender: How Big Is the Gap?
Men own crypto at roughly two to three times the rate of women in every market with recent data. Axis Intelligence Research calculates the male-to-female ratio from each survey separately, because the surveys ask different questions:
| Market and group | Men | Women | Gender multiple (men ÷ women) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S., all adults (ever used, Jan 2026) | 27% | 11% | 2.45 | Pew Research Center; Axis calculation |
| U.S., ages 18–29 | 38% | 15% | 2.53 | Pew Research Center; Axis calculation |
| U.S., ages 30–49 | 40% | 17% | 2.35 | Pew Research Center; Axis calculation |
| U.S., ages 50+ | 14% | 6% | 2.33 | Pew Research Center; Axis calculation |
| U.S., ages 18–49 (own now, Jun 2025) | 25% | 8% | 3.13 | Gallup; Axis calculation |
| U.S., ages 50+ (own now, Jun 2025) | 12% | 9% | 1.33 | Gallup; Axis calculation |
| Nordics, all adults (Mar 2026) | 17.1% | 5.2% | 3.29 | K33 Research (estimate); Axis calculation |
| U.S., all adults (used in 2025) | 13.3% | 6.1% | 2.18 | Fed SHED 2025 microdata; Axis tabulation |
In the Nordics, K33 estimates that 23% of crypto owners are women. In the UK, the FCA found 11% of men hold crypto against an 8% national rate, and awareness of crypto is near-universal for both sexes: 95% of men and 88% of women.
Is the crypto gender gap closing?
No public 2026 series shows it closing. In Pew’s data the ratio is about the same in every age group, between 2.33 and 2.53. Gallup’s 2025 data had one exception: among people 50 and older, women (9%) owned crypto at almost the same rate as men (12%), and slightly above women aged 18 to 49 (8%).
Sarah Davis: Women know about crypto almost as much as men. The FCA’s awareness numbers show that. So the gap is about how the product is sold, and the FCA’s risk data points the same way: 68% of male UK crypto users say they are more willing to take risk, against 51% of women. A product sold as a lottery ticket pulls in more men. A product sold as a portfolio sleeve with a clear custody story closes the gap more slowly but keeps the money longer.
Crypto Ownership by Income and Education
Higher-income adults are more likely to own crypto, and that difference is growing as lower-income holders leave.
| Income group | Pew, ever used (Jan 2026) | Gallup, own now (Jun 2025) | Gallup investors, own now (Jun 2026) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upper / $90k+ | 27% | 19% | 15% | Pew Research Center; Gallup |
| Middle / $48k–89k | 20% | 13% | 7% | Pew Research Center; Gallup |
| Lower / <$48k | 16% | 9% | 4% | Pew Research Center; Gallup |
| Upper ÷ lower | 1.69 | 2.11 | 3.75 | Axis calculation |
Gallup reports that between 2025 and 2026, ownership among upper-income investors fell 4 percentage points, while middle- and lower-income investors each fell 8 points. Pew’s upper-income “ever used” rate went from 17% in 2021 to 23% in 2024 and 27% in 2026. In Gallup’s 2025 survey, 19% of college graduates owned crypto.
The UK shows the same tilt. The FCA puts ownership at 10% among the ABC1 social grades (professional, managerial and clerical households).
Crypto ownership by race and ethnicity
Pew’s January 2026 survey found Asian adults the most likely to have used crypto (25%), followed by Black (20%), Hispanic (19%) and White (18%) adults. Pew reports Asian adults among English speakers only. The White share has risen from 13% in 2021, which has narrowed the gap between groups. In the UK, 19% of adults from ethnic minority backgrounds hold crypto, more than twice the national 8%, per the FCA. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s working paper also finds that crypto holders are less likely to be white than non-holders.
Sarah Davis: The income gradient tells you who is still holding after the drawdown. Among Gallup’s investors it goes from 2.11 to 3.75 depending on the survey you take. Lower-income holders tend to sell first because they need the cash. Higher-income holders can afford to wait. So when an industry report shows “average portfolio size up” in 2026, check who left before reading it as new wealth.
Why Do People Use Crypto? Investment vs Payments
Investing, not spending, is the main reason Americans use crypto. In the Federal Reserve’s 2025 SHED, 9% of adults used crypto as an investment, 2% used it to buy something and 1% used it to send money to friends or family.
Who uses crypto for payments?
Crypto payments are concentrated among people outside the banking system. The SHED found 6% of unbanked adults used crypto for transactions, compared with 2% of banked adults. Among transactional users, the main reasons given were:
| Main reason for paying with crypto | Share of transactional users | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The recipient or merchant preferred it | 26% | Federal Reserve SHED 2025 |
| Faster | 19% | Federal Reserve SHED 2025 |
| Privacy | 17% | Federal Reserve SHED 2025 |
| Cheaper | 14% | Federal Reserve SHED 2025 |
| Safer | 9% | Federal Reserve SHED 2025 |
| Distrust of banks | 7% | Federal Reserve SHED 2025 |
| Other | 8% | Federal Reserve SHED 2025 |
The SHED also found that crypto was involved in 9% of fraud incidents that did not involve a credit card. The median crypto fraud loss was $1,200 before any recovery and $900 after. Our crypto crime statistics break losses down by victim age.
In the UK, 30% of crypto users told the FCA they bought it as a gamble and 33% as part of a wider portfolio. Seven percent said they had been scammed.
How Many People Own Crypto Worldwide?
Crypto.com estimates 741 million people owned crypto worldwide at the end of 2025, up from 659 million a year earlier. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that as a 12.4% increase. Crypto.com counts 365 million bitcoin owners, 49.3% of the total, and 175 million Ether owners. These figures are company-reported: Crypto.com runs an exchange and benefits from a larger headline number. The method is disclosed in its Crypto Market Sizing Report 2025. For holding versus active-use rates, see our crypto wallet statistics.
Crypto ownership in Europe and Asia
| Market | Ownership rate | Count | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK | 8% of adults (12% in 2024) | — | Aug–Sep 2025 | Financial Conduct Authority |
| Nordics (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland) | 11.1% of adults | 2.5M owners | Mar 2026 | K33 Research (estimate) |
| South Korea | — | 11.175M tradable accounts | Jun 30, 2026 | Financial Services Commission |
K33 estimates 326,000 net new Nordic owners year on year, total Nordic crypto holdings of $25.8 billion, and that most owners hold less than $1,000. The Korean count is accounts, not people. One investor can hold accounts on more than one of the 26 reporting operators.
How long have crypto holders been in the market?
UK holders are mostly from earlier cycles. The FCA found that 38% of current users first bought in 2019–2021, 24% between 2022 and October 2024, and 5% after October 2024.
Sarah Davis: A market where only one holder in twenty arrived in the last year is selling to the people it already has. That changes what the business is about: retention, custody and product depth, not acquisition. The FCA also found 74% of UK users keep their crypto on the exchange where they bought it. For an exchange, those are custody balances you can earn on. For the user, they are counterparty risk they may not know they carry. Our self-custody wallet statistics cover the other side.
What Do Crypto Owners Expect, and How Risky Do They Think It Is?
Most U.S. investors see crypto as risky, and that includes people who own it. In June 2026, 63% of Gallup’s investors called crypto very risky and 31% somewhat risky. Among owners, 47% said very risky, up from 42% in 2025. Interest is limited: 19% of U.S. adults say they are intrigued or plan to buy, and 66% are not interested.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s working paper, “Do You Even Crypto, Bro?”, reports that in its 2025 survey wave, crypto owners expected a 13.8% annual return on their investments, against 4.7% for non-owners. Its 2021 regression finds that being under 40 instead of 61 or older raised the likelihood of owning crypto by 13.1 percentage points, and being male raised it by 4.0 points. Age is the strongest single predictor in the model.
Sarah Davis: A return expectation of 13.8% is roughly three times what a non-owner expects. That gap is the market’s main exposure to bad outcomes. A holder who expects that much return will put up with a high spread, will not shop for custody, and is the profile scammers target. The SHED’s $900 median net fraud loss is what that costs.
Methodology
Collection. Axis Intelligence Research assembled this dataset in October 2026 from ten primary source documents:
- four U.S. national surveys: Pew Research Center (2026), Gallup (2025 and 2026 waves) and the Federal Reserve SHED
- the Federal Reserve’s SHED 2025 public-use microdata (12,934 respondents), tabulated by Axis Intelligence Research with the survey weight
weight - one Federal Reserve Bank working paper using a consumer panel
- one UK regulator survey: the Financial Conduct Authority, fielded by YouGov
- one Korean regulatory survey of exchange operators: the FSC/FIU
- one measurement firm’s survey: K33 Research, fielded by Norstat
- one company-reported global estimate: Crypto.com
All 403 rows in the CSV list their source document, URL and retrieval date. The Korean age and balance-band figures are taken directly from the FSC/FIU survey’s detailed tables (PDF attachment to the October 1, 2026 release).
Formulas.
- CAWR = age group’s share of Korean accounts holding ₩100M to under ₩1B ÷ that group’s share of all tradable accounts. The 105,000 accounts in that band are the denominator for “share of large accounts”. The same formula is applied separately to the ₩1B-and-over band (3,275 accounts); the two bands are not merged.
- Gender multiple = male rate ÷ female rate, always within a single survey.
- Income gradient = upper-income rate ÷ lower-income rate, within a single survey.
- Relative change = (new − old) ÷ old.
- SHED microdata rates = sum of survey weights for respondents who answered “Yes” ÷ sum of weights in the group. “Any purpose” = yes to S16_a, S16_b or S16_c. “Investment” = S16_a. “Payments or sending money” = S16_b or S16_c. Unweighted n is in the CSV’s method_note column.
What we did not do. We did not combine Pew, Gallup and SHED into one U.S. ownership rate, because “ever used”, “own now” and “used in the past 12 months” count different people. We did not convert Korean account counts into a count of people.
Where these numbers stop.
- Korean data are submitted by operators and are not national statistics.
- Pew’s Asian American estimate covers English speakers only.
- K33’s figures are a measurement-firm estimate.
- Crypto.com’s global count is company-reported, from a firm with an interest in the size of the market.
- The SHED microdata tables are Axis tabulations, not Federal Reserve publications. Small groups (unbanked adults, n=698; adults who used crypto for payments or for sending money, n=279) carry wider sampling error than the national figures.
- CAWR describes South Korea only. Applying it elsewhere would need balance-by-age data that no U.S. or EU regulator currently publishes.
About This Dataset
File: crypto-demographics.csv. It has 403 rows and 13 columns in long format, covering 2018–2026 across the US, UK, Nordics, South Korea and the world. Each row is one observation, with columns for metric, value, unit, as-of date, geography, segment, source organization, source document, source URL, retrieval date, primary flag, Axis-calculation flag and method note.
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You can reuse it, including commercially, with attribution.
Required attribution: Axis Intelligence Research, Crypto Demographics 2026, 2026, https://axis-intelligence.com/crypto-demographics/
Also on: Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub under the Axis Intelligence Research account.
How to Cite This Page
- APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Davis, S. (2026, October 27). Crypto demographics 2026: Who owns crypto by age, gender and income. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/crypto-demographics/
- MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sarah Davis. “Crypto Demographics 2026: Who Owns Crypto by Age, Gender and Income.” Axis Intelligence, 27 Oct. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/crypto-demographics/.
- Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sarah Davis. “Crypto Demographics 2026: Who Owns Crypto by Age, Gender and Income.” Axis Intelligence, October 27, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/crypto-demographics/.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of Americans own crypto in 2026?
Nine percent of U.S. adults owned cryptocurrency in June 2026, according to Gallup. That is down from 14% in June 2025. A broader measure from Pew Research Center finds 19% have ever invested in, traded or used crypto (January 2026).
What age group owns the most crypto?
In the U.S., adults aged 30 to 49 have the highest rate of crypto use, 28%, per Pew Research Center (January 2026), slightly ahead of 18- to 29-year-olds at 26%. In South Korea, people in their 40s overtook those in their 30s as the largest group of account holders in H1 2026.
Do older people hold more crypto than younger people?
By value, yes, where data exist. Axis Intelligence Research finds that Korean investors aged 50 and over hold 54.3% of accounts worth ₩100 million to ₩1 billion while making up 29.0% of all accounts (H1 2026). Younger investors have more accounts but much smaller balances.
What is the Crypto Age–Wealth Ratio (CAWR)?
The Crypto Age–Wealth Ratio (CAWR) is an Axis Intelligence Research metric. It divides an age group’s share of large crypto accounts by its share of all crypto accounts. A value above 1.0 means the group holds more than its share of large balances. In South Korea in H1 2026, the CAWR was 2.27 for people aged 60 and over and 0.11 for those in their 20s and under.
Are men or women more likely to own crypto?
Men are. Pew Research Center finds 27% of U.S. men have used crypto against 11% of women (January 2026). Axis Intelligence Research calculates that as a 2.45-to-1 ratio. K33 Research estimates 23% of Nordic crypto owners are women.
Why did crypto ownership drop in 2026?
Gallup measured a fall from 14% to 9% of U.S. adults between June 2025 and June 2026, a period in which bitcoin traded near $59,000 at the time of the 2026 poll. Middle- and lower-income investors fell 8 points each, twice the drop among upper-income investors. That pattern suggests that holders who needed the cash sold first.
Is the unbanked population using crypto for payments?
More than banked adults are, but still only a small share. The Federal Reserve’s SHED found 6% of unbanked U.S. adults used crypto for transactions in 2025, against 2% of banked adults. The most common reason was that the person or merchant being paid preferred crypto (26%).
Do lower-income Americans use crypto differently?
Yes. Axis Intelligence Research’s tabulation of Federal Reserve SHED 2025 microdata shows 4.1% of adults in households earning under $25,000 used crypto for payments or for sending money, against 1.8% in $100,000+ households. For investment use, the order is reversed: 11.5% versus 6.0%.
How many people own crypto worldwide?
Crypto.com estimates 741 million people owned crypto at the end of 2025, up 12.4% from 659 million. This is a company-reported figure from an exchange operator, not a government statistic.
Related Axis research: cryptocurrency statistics · bitcoin statistics · stablecoin statistics · stock market participation statistics · retail investor statistics