American attitudes toward cryptocurrency split sharply along generational lines, and the divide keeps widening. Survey after survey points in the same direction: younger investors are far more likely to own, trust, and actively use crypto than their parents and grandparents.

The findings below draw on survey and research data published between 2023 and January 2026 — from Coinbase, OKX, YouGov, Pew Research Center, Cerulli Associates, Vanguard, FINRA, and a peer-reviewed academic study published in 2025. Together they map who owns crypto, why they own it, how much they invest, and what the coming transfer of trillions in wealth could mean for digital asset markets.

Generational definitions used throughout: Gen Z (born 1997–2012), Millennials (1981–1996), Gen X (1965–1980), and Baby Boomers (1946–1964).

Ownership Rates: A Steep Generational Gradient

The most consistent finding across all major surveys is that younger generations hold crypto at far higher rates than older ones.

Coinbase estimates that 45% of Millennials and 39% of Gen Z adults in the United States own some form of cryptocurrency. Gen X sits at roughly 10–15%, while Baby Boomers trail at just 5–10%.

YouGov data from 2025 offers a striking contrast: 42% of Gen Z investors own crypto, but only 11% hold a retirement account. The gap reflects a fundamentally different approach to building wealth among this cohort.

Pew Research found that 28% of adults aged 18–29 have invested in, traded, or used cryptocurrency, compared with just 8% of those aged 50 and older — a ratio of more than three to one.

Across five major surveys compiled by CoinCentral, Millennials show crypto adoption rates averaging five times those of Baby Boomers. Even the most conservative individual survey estimates put the ratio at no less than 3.5 to one.

Entry points also differ by cohort. Gen Z tends to discover crypto through gaming, NFTs, and social media. Millennials typically arrive via direct exchanges. Boomers increasingly come through financial advisers or Bitcoin ETFs, following the SEC's approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 — a route that packages Bitcoin in the brokerage-account format older investors already know. These entry points correspond to what each cohort holds once inside: Gen Z's community-driven discovery aligns with its taste for memecoins, NFTs, and gaming tokens, while Boomers' adviser-guided arrival matches their preference for custodial solutions and ETFs over self-managed wallets.

Sources: Coinbase, YouGov (2025), Pew Research (2023), and multiple surveys compiled by CoinCentral. Ranges reflect variation across surveys.

Trust and Confidence in Crypto Platforms

Owning crypto and trusting the platforms that hold it are two different things. A January 2026 survey sponsored by OKX, with 1,000 participants, measured how confident each generation feels about crypto platforms.

Some 40% of Gen Z respondents and 41% of Millennials said they feel confident in crypto platforms. Gen X registered 27%, while Baby Boomers fell to just 9%.

Year-over-year data shows confidence rising fastest among younger cohorts. Between 2025 and 2026, 36% of Gen Zers said their trust in cryptocurrency had increased, as did 34% of Millennials. Only 16% of Gen Xers and 6% of Baby Boomers reported the same.

Younger investors cite around-the-clock accessibility and easy-to-use apps as the main reasons for their confidence. Older investors point to security concerns and the absence of consumer protections such as FDIC insurance, which covers bank deposits up to $250,000 per depositor per bank but does not extend to cryptocurrency holdings.

Forbes reporting found that half of young, wealthy investors have considered switching — or have already switched — financial advisers who would not support crypto investment.

Meanwhile, 71% of Baby Boomers believe banks will remain a primary part of the financial system. More than half of Gen Z respondents, by contrast, expect banks to eventually be surpassed by crypto.

Source: OKX sponsored survey, January 2026 (n=1,000). The year-over-year trust comparison covers 2025–2026.

The Great Wealth Transfer and Crypto

The biggest potential shift in crypto markets may come not from new retail investors but from inherited wealth moving from Baby Boomers into the hands of younger, crypto-friendly generations.

Cerulli Associates projects that $84.4 trillion will pass from Baby Boomers and older generations to younger heirs through 2045. Baby Boomers alone are expected to transfer $53 trillion, while the Silent Generation will contribute an estimated $16 trillion over the next decade.

As of the second quarter of 2023, Baby Boomers and older Americans held $95.6 trillion in wealth — roughly two-thirds of all U.S. household wealth, despite making up less than one-third of the adult population. Millennials and younger generations collectively hold just $8.3 trillion, about 5.7% of the total: roughly 11.5 times less than Boomers overall, and about 15.5 times less on a per-capita basis.

CoinCentral's analysis estimates that if the wealth transfer happened today, between $160 billion and $225 billion would flow into crypto markets, based on younger generations' 3.5 to 5 times higher adoption rates. Spread over the 20-year transfer window, that translates into an estimated $20 million to $28 million in buying pressure across the crypto market.

Timing matters as much as size here: because Cerulli's projection runs through 2045, any crypto demand generated by the transfer would build gradually across a two-decade window rather than arriving all at once.

A BNY Mellon survey found that younger wealthy investors commit an average of 5% of their portfolios to crypto, compared with just 1% for North American family offices. As wealth moves into younger hands, that allocation gap could large-scale demand.

The transfer will not reach all younger Americans equally, however. Cerulli estimates that 42% of all transfers will come from households in the top 1.5% by wealth. University of Pennsylvania research found that the top 5% of households by income receive inheritances four to twelve times larger than those in the bottom 80%. A Federal Reserve study found that recent inheritance recipients received an average of $46,200, well short of the $72,200 they had expected. For those in the bottom half by wealth, the gap was even larger.

Sources: Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances (Q2 2023), Cerulli Associates, Coldwell Banker. The Gen X figure is estimated by subtraction from total U.S. household wealth of $146 trillion.

Personality Traits, Age, and Gender in Crypto Investment

A peer-reviewed study published in Personality and Individual Differences (Honold and Oh, 2025) surveyed 208 U.S. adults to examine how personality traits predict willingness to invest in cryptocurrency.

The researchers focused on three Big Five traits — openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, and agreeableness — along with the roles of age and gender.

Conscientiousness showed the strongest negative relationship with crypto investment willingness. People who score high on the trait tend to plan carefully, avoid risk, and prefer stable, regulated investments; cryptocurrency's volatility pushes them away.

Agreeableness also predicted lower investment willingness. Highly agreeable people tend to align with social norms and the prevailing skepticism toward speculative markets, and crypto's volatile, largely unregulated nature conflicts with those preferences.

Openness to experience was expected to predict higher willingness to invest, but its effect did not reach statistical significance in this study.

Age was a strong independent predictor: older participants showed much lower willingness to invest in crypto regardless of their personality scores.

Gender moderated the age-investment relationship in a specific way. Men's enthusiasm for crypto declined more sharply with age than women's, while women showed more consistent patterns across age groups. Overall, men remain more than three times as likely as women to invest in cryptocurrency — a gap linked to higher financial risk tolerance and overconfidence among male investors.

Taken together, the findings suggest the generational divide is not simply a matter of exposure or familiarity: disposition and age each carry independent weight in who is willing to invest.

Source: Honold, S.E. and Oh, N. (2025), Personality and Individual Differences. Survey of 208 U.S. participants, data collected May 2024.

How Each Generation Invests in Crypto

The generations do not merely own different amounts of crypto. They use it in entirely different ways, with different assets, platforms, and goals.

Gen Z trades frequently and chases trends, favoring memecoins, NFTs, gaming tokens, and altcoins. Their investment decisions are shaped by communities on Discord, Reddit, and TikTok; for many in this group, owning specific tokens is as much a statement of cultural identity as a financial choice.

A FINRA and CFA survey found that 44% of Gen Z investors began their investing journey with crypto — ahead of individual stocks at 32% and mutual funds at 21%. The same study found a median of $1,000 invested in crypto, roughly one-fourth of the cohort's total median investment holdings of $4,000.

Millennials take a longer view, holding Bitcoin and Ethereum as core positions while adding selective exposure to DeFi protocols, staking, and altcoins. Having lived through the 2008 financial crisis and multiple crypto market downturns, they balance long-term positions with tactical participation.

An Investopedia survey found that 38% of Millennials hold investments in crypto, compared with 37% who hold individual stocks — a near-even split that shows how mainstream crypto has become for this generation.

Baby Boomers focus almost entirely on Bitcoin. Their primary goals are wealth preservation and inflation protection rather than speculation or yield, and most prefer custodial solutions or ETFs to managing their own private wallets. Their entry into crypto is rooted in economic pragmatism, not ideology.

Financial literacy varies widely across the groups. An Investopedia survey found that 69% of Millennials report an intermediate to advanced understanding of digital currency, compared with just 23% of Boomers.

Sources: FINRA/CFA Gen Z investor survey; Investopedia generational surveys; CoinCentral analysis of JPMorganChase Institute, Digitap, and survey data.

Retirement Savings: Gen Z Starts Earlier

Despite high debt levels and living costs, Gen Z is saving for retirement earlier than any previous generation — a more complex picture than the common narrative of financial struggle.

JPMorganChase Institute research found that more than one-third of 25-year-olds in 2024 had moved money into an investment account since turning 22, up from just 6% in 2015 — a major shift in investment behavior among young adults.

The average Gen Z worker started saving for retirement at age 24; the average Baby Boomer started at 34. That decade-long head start gives Gen Z a substantial advantage in compounding growth.

Gen Z workers already hold an average 401(k) balance of $13,500, according to Investopedia. Researchers link this partly to declining trust in Social Security, which projections suggest could face funding shortfalls by 2034. Only 5% of Gen Z respondents expect Social Security to be their main source of retirement income, and 58% of Gen Z and Millennial respondents say they plan to rely on personal retirement accounts instead.

Vanguard projections give Gen Z the highest likelihood of retiring on track. Some 47% of Gen Z respondents said they expect to maintain their current lifestyle in retirement, followed by Millennials at 42%, Gen X at 41%, and Baby Boomers at 40% — a finding that runs counter to the common image of Gen Z as financially unprepared. Their earlier start and willingness to invest across multiple asset classes, including crypto, may give them a structural long-term advantage.

Sources: Vanguard retirement projections; Investopedia (2026); JPMorganChase Institute; Transamerica Institute survey. Millennial and Gen X start ages are approximations.

What the Data Means for Crypto Markets

The generational data points in one direction: crypto adoption is set to grow as wealth shifts between generations. As Baby Boomers pass assets to Millennials and Gen Z, more of that capital is likely to enter digital asset markets. Even a small shift in portfolio allocation across trillions of dollars could reshape crypto market dynamics at a scale that retail buying pressure alone cannot explain.

Academic research confirms that younger investors are drawn to crypto by both psychology and economics: less trust in traditional financial institutions, more comfort with digital tools, and higher tolerance for market volatility. None of these factors changes quickly.

At the same time, Baby Boomers entering crypto through regulated ETF products bring a stabilizing demand profile. Their buy-and-hold approach, focused on wealth preservation rather than speculation, creates a different type of buyer than Gen Z's high-frequency traders. Boomers are also indirectly pushing regulators toward clearer rules for digital assets; their demand for consumer protection and oversight is helping legit the asset class in the eyes of regulators and institutional investors.

The result is a market shaped by competing forces. Gen Z contributes volatility and cultural energy, Millennials add infrastructure and long-term capital, and Boomers bring legitimacy and regulatory pressure. Each generation shapes crypto's market structure differently.

For crypto companies, the data also shows that no single product will serve all three groups. Gen Z wants social features, community tools, and gamified experiences. Millennials want DeFi, staking, yield products, and transparent developer communities. Boomers want simplicity, regulated custodians, and phone support. Firms that understand those differences and build accordingly are best positioned to capture market share as generational wealth continues to shift. The transition is already underway.

How quickly that transition progresses is measurable against benchmarks the data above already establishes: year-over-year trust readings such as OKX's 2025–2026 comparison, the pace of Boomer entry through regulated ETF products, and transfer totals tracked against Cerulli's $84.4 trillion projection through 2045. Each provides a factual yardstick for how far the generational shift has progressed.

Sources

Coinbase. America's Crypto Landscape: Generational Adoption Rates.

Cerulli Associates. U.S. High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Markets 2023: The Great Wealth Transfer.

Pew Research Center (2023). Majority of Americans Aren't Confident in the Safety and Reliability of Cryptocurrency.

OKX / Leibowitz, C., Feldstein, J. and Walker, A. (2026). "Generation Z trusts crypto while saving money in 401(k) plans." The Hill.

YouGov for Coinbase (2025). Gen Z Crypto vs. Retirement Ownership Survey.