Why do people use cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency is most often used as an investment: in 2023, 7% of all US adults bought or held crypto as an investment, 1% used it to pay for something, and another 1% used it to send money to friends or family.
Among those people, 29% said they used cryptocurrency because it was preferred by the other party in a transaction. Other reasons for trading in crypto included transfer speed (18%), privacy (16%), lower transaction costs (13%), safety (7%), and lack of trust in banks (4%).
Who uses cryptocurrency?
Men are nearly three times more likely to use cryptocurrency: 11% of men used cryptocurrency in 2023 compared to 4% of women.
Usage also varied by income level. People with high incomes (family income of $100,000 or more) and low incomes ($25,000 or less) used cryptocurrencies more often than people in the middle-income brackets. Low-income Americans had the highest share of people using crypto for transactions (4%), while investing with crypto was most common among high-income Americans (8%).
