16% of Americans have invested, traded or used cryptocurrency

A study by the Pew Research Center, a Washington DC-based non-partisan think tank, has found that approximately 16% of American adults have invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency.

In its report, Pew Research highlighted that the turmoil in the crypto market has taken its toll on this demographic. About 46% of these crypto users reported that their investment has performed worse than they expected.

Only about 15% said their investment had exceeded expectations, while 31% roughly broke even and 8% said they were uncertain about the performance of their crypto portfolio.

The main reasons crypto users cite for making their investments include investment diversification, as well as the fact that crypto is an easier asset class to invest in and has low barriers to entry.

The survey found that a similarly low percentage of Americans – 2% – had invested in non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This is from 49% of the participants in the survey who had heard about the digital features.

Pew Research noted that the statistics clearly show that the US crypto market has failed to register any significant increase in investors since 2021 despite increased media attention to the asset class.

“…the total share of US adults who have ever invested in, traded, or used a cryptocurrency (also referred to as “crypto users” in this analysis) is unchanged since September 2021. This lack of overall change comes despite strong attention to crypto in the news,” the report said.

This is in reference to a similar survey published back in November 2021 where it also found that 16% of US adults had invested in, traded or used cryptocurrencies.

The US lags behind other countries in terms of crypto adoption

While the US is a hotspot for crypto companies with over 1,800 crypto companies and over 2,200 founders according to data from Crunchbase, the US has lagged behind other countries in crypto uptake and interest.

A report by blockchain and crypto intelligence firm Chainalysis ranked the US eighth, down from sixth, in its 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index, with adoption in the country at 14%. Per Chainalysis, the biggest reason the country fell is that its ranking in P2P trading volume weighted for Internet-using population dropped dramatically. However, the data also suggested growing global crypto adoption.

Meanwhile, another study shows that many more Americans who are not yet crypto users plan to do so before the end of 2022. The study conducted by Ascent found that about 56% of the adult population in the United States, or about 46 million Americans, plan to invest in crypto during 2022.