Fed finds 10% of Americans use crypto

TLDR

The Federal Reserve now estimates that around one in ten American adults used or owned cryptocurrency in 2025, showing a modest rebound in U.S. crypto adoption.

1. Fed survey data show about 10% of U.S. adults used or held crypto in 2025, up from 7% in 2024 but still below the 12% peak in 2021.
2. Around 9% used crypto mainly as an investment, while only about 2% used it for payments and 1% for remittances, with higher payment use among unbanked adults.
3. The data suggest crypto is a mainstream niche investment, with ETFs, demographics and regulation likely determining whether usage grows beyond roughly one in ten adults.

Deep Dive

1. What The Fed Found

The latest Federal Reserve Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking reports that about 10% of U.S. adults used or held cryptocurrency in 2025, up from 7% in 2024 and below the roughly 12% participation seen in 2021. The figures are based on a nationally representative sample of nearly 13,000 adults surveyed in October 2025, and are detailed in the official Federal Reserve survey.

This makes 2025 the highest U.S. adoption level since 2022, but still short of the boom era before the FTX collapse. In other words, crypto has recovered some trust, not all of it.

2. How Americans Use Crypto

The Fed finds that crypto use is heavily investment driven. About 7 to 9% of adults report holding crypto primarily as an investment, while only about 2% use it to make payments and 1% use it to send money to family or friends, according to a crypto adoption summary.

Usage is skewed toward adults under 45 and higher income households, and unbanked Americans are more likely to use crypto for transactions, with about 6% of unbanked adults using it for payments compared with roughly 2% of banked adults. That points to a niche role in financial inclusion, alongside a much larger role as a speculative or long term investment.

3. Implications And Next Steps

The Fed and several analyses link the 2025 rebound in participation to the growth of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which give retail investors a familiar brokerage channel into digital assets without using crypto exchanges. That means more Americans can hold BTC or ETH exposure inside regular brokerage or retirement accounts, even if they never touch a wallet or on chain app.

For policy makers, the numbers frame crypto as something already used by millions but still smaller than stock or mutual fund ownership, so regulation will likely focus on investor protection and payment system access rather than banning the sector. For users and builders, the main open questions are whether payment use can grow beyond a low single digit share and how future regulation, ETF flows and macro conditions affect that path.

Conclusion

The Fed finding that about 10% of American adults use or own crypto confirms that digital assets have moved from fringe to a stable but still limited slice of household finance. Adoption has rebounded from the post?FTX slump, yet remains well below peak boom levels and is dominated by investment rather than everyday payments. How ETFs evolve, how regulators set the rules and whether real world payment use expands will determine if crypto stays a one in ten niche or scales further into the financial mainstream.