We hear a lot about “the crypto voter.” The industry has talked about them plenty on their road to power in Washington.
But we’ve never felt like we know much about these people. Until now!
First in The Vault: We obtained a survey of 4,000 crypto users that runs the demographic gamut — from race, politics, news habits, social habits and more. The survey was conducted by Echelon and was commissioned by the investment firm, Paradigm.
It’s fair to be skeptical of this bloc’s electoral might. We think the hundreds of millions of dollars in super PAC ad spending tends to be more persuasive, and government surveys of crypto ownership have always lagged well behind the industry’s own estimates.
But the data here is an interesting political snapshot of the crypto bloc, size notwithstanding.
The basics: The Echelon survey showed an even-ish partisan split among crypto owners – 37% Republican, 36% Democratic and 24% who claimed to be independent.
The ideological breakdown of crypto owners leans more to the left than national tracking polls. The largest group, 37%, identify as moderate, and 31% identify as liberal. Just 29% identified as conservative, compared to 37% of Americans nationally per Gallup.
The demographics of crypto ownership still skew white. A wide majority of holders, 62%, identify as white. But Black crypto owners are strongly represented here, coming in at 19% of respondents while only being 14% of the U.S. population. Other groups, including Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans, mostly hew to their national demographics.
The gender split is about what you’d expect: 64% of crypto owners are men, 36% are women.
It’s a lifestyle? Survey respondents were asked if owning crypto was a big part of their identities. Nearly a third, or 28%, agreed that owning crypto assets said “a lot about who they are,” plus 31% who agreed crypto ownership said “a little” about them.
Crypto owners also like to talk about crypto. Almost a quarter of all owners said they like to bring crypto up in conversation — a number that rises to 45% among those who considered crypto to be an important part of their identities.
News they use: Crypto users overwhelmingly get their crypto news from social media, particularly YouTube. Fully 50% of crypto owners reported getting much of their news from YouTube. They’re also partial to industry-specific publications like CoinDesk and Bankless, versus mainstream news outlets.
A smaller, but still significant, group of crypto owners said they get most of their industry news from platforms like Telegram, Discord or other kinds of group chats – a total of 22%. A similarly sized group said they used AI platforms like ChatGPT.
