More Americans Have Tried Crypto — and More Have Walked Away
A national survey found 22% of U.S. adults have tried crypto, up from 18% a year earlier, but the share using it in the past year stayed flat at 13% — the growth came from people who quit.
The share of U.S. adults who say they have ever owned or used crypto rose to 22% this year, up from 18% in 2025, according to a national survey conducted by Ipsos and reported by Decrypt on October 28. But the share who used crypto in the past 12 months did not move at all, holding at 13% year over year.
Read together, those two numbers say something the top-line figure alone obscures: the increase in lifetime users is made up almost entirely of people who have since stepped away. More Americans have tried crypto; roughly the same number as last year are actually using it.
The survey was conducted by Ipsos for the DeFi Education Fund, a crypto policy advocacy group — meaning the organization that paid for the research has a direct interest in a growing-adoption story. Treat the commissioning body as an interested party, not a neutral one. The detailed demographic breakdown of who is leaving, and the survey's sample size, margin of error and field dates, were not included in the reporting available here.
Key facts
- 22% of U.S. adults say they have ever owned or used crypto, up from 18% in 2025 — Ipsos survey, via Decrypt (Oct. 28, 2026).
- 13% report using crypto in the past 12 months — flat versus a year earlier (same source).
- The year-over-year growth in lifetime users came "almost entirely from people who have stepped away" — Decrypt, summarizing the Ipsos data.
- Survey commissioned by the DeFi Education Fund, a crypto policy advocacy group.
The real-world read
The headline an advocacy group wants from this is "crypto adoption is up." The number that measures adoption in any meaningful sense — people who actually used crypto in the last year — did not rise. It sat at 13%, exactly where it was in 2025. The entire four-point bump in the "ever tried" figure is accounted for by churned users: people who dabbled and left. That is a retention problem dressed up as a growth story.
Who paid for the research matters here. The DeFi Education Fund exists to advance crypto-friendly policy, and a survey showing broadening public exposure is useful ammunition for that case. The underlying finding — flat active usage, rising dropout — cuts the other way, which is worth keeping in view when the 22% figure gets quoted on its own.
Opinion, and whose
The DeFi Education Fund's framing, as the survey's sponsor, leans on the rising "ever used" figure as evidence of momentum. No independent forecast or counter-analysis was available in the reporting here; the retention read above is this outlet's reading of the two figures as reported, not a prediction.
Sources
- Decrypt (Tier 2, reputable secondary), Oct. 28, 2026 — reported the Ipsos survey figures (22% ever used, 18% in 2025, 13% past-year) and the finding that growth came from lapsed users. Note: the underlying survey was commissioned by the DeFi Education Fund, a crypto advocacy group — an interested party whose framing should be discounted accordingly.
This is news reporting, not financial advice.