Ipsos Survey Shows Crypto Churn Rises as Active US Adoption Stalls at 13%

A growing number of Americans have experimented with digital assets, but few are sticking with them ¹. According to a national survey conducted by Ipsos for the DeFi Education Fund, 22% of US adults have ever owned or used cryptocurrency, up from 18% in 2025 ¹. However, the share of respondents who actively used crypto in the past 12 months held flat at 13% ¹.

The survey polled 1,545 adults from Sept. 8 to Sept. 16 using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel ¹. The data indicates that recent growth in lifetime users is driven primarily by people who have since stepped away ¹. Among Americans who reported not using crypto over the past year, the proportion who had ever owned or used it climbed to 11% from 5% ¹. Forward-looking interest also remained stagnant, with 17% of respondents indicating they are likely to own or use crypto in the future compared to 16% in 2025 ¹. Demographically, men were more than twice as likely as women to have used crypto in the past year, at 18% versus 8%, while curiosity led as the primary motivator for entering the market at 34%, followed by long-term investment at 25% ¹. Understanding trading psychology in crypto often highlights how early novelty fades when users encounter market volatility.

Trust Deficits and the DeFi Knowledge Gap

While traditional finance faces low consumer confidence, the crypto sector has struggled to capture that sentiment ¹. Only 19% of respondents consider the traditional financial system secure, and 63% believe it requires upgrades against threats like artificial intelligence and cybercrime ¹. Despite this skepticism, crypto alternatives saw negligible confidence: only 4% of participants reported high trust in crypto exchanges, and 5% trusted decentralized platforms ¹. By comparison, large national banks secured 42% trust, while credit unions led at 48% ¹. Broader ecosystem security concerns linger alongside these findings; wallet maker Ledger recently confirmed that an $87 million drain involved hardware units supplied by a Southeast Asian reseller ¹.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) continues to suffer from a lack of general awareness despite open interest ¹. Only 2% of Americans described themselves as very familiar with DeFi, and just 6% could identify four baseline characteristics of cryptocurrency ¹. Even so, 40% stated they would be at least somewhat likely to try DeFi, with more than 80% of that cohort expressing an interest in utilizing it to save money, earn interest, or transfer funds ¹. However, broader educational curiosity is waning: interest in learning about stablecoins dropped to 7% from 11%, while interest in DeFi fell to 8% from 11% ¹. At the time of writing, $BTC traded at $81,412 and $ETH stood at $2,365 amid neutral market sentiment.