Republicans buy crypto more than Democrats, data shows

Cryptocurrency adoption appears to have a political bent – ​​and a significant gender divide.

Republicans have embraced crypto more enthusiastically than Democrats in recent years, the data shows, coinciding with President Donald Trump’s ascension to the White House for a second term in office and his extensive support – and involvement – in the crypto industry.

About 22% of Republicans say they have invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency like bitcoin or etheraccording to a Pew Research Center poll published on June 8. In contrast, 17% of Democrats use crypto. Pew surveyed 8,512 US adults at the end of January.

“[Crypto] “There’s always been a history of liberalism, and startups tend to go along with that doctrine — a skepticism of centralized power and government solutions,” said Colin McLaren, head of government relations at the Solana Policy Institute, a nonprofit representing the crypto industry.

“That ideological DNA naturally expresses feelings of entitlement, so it’s no surprise to see Republican identity evolve as technology advances,” McLaren said.

A factional divide has recently emerged in investors’ use of crypto, Pew found.

Before 2026, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were just as likely as Republican-leaning independents to say they hold crypto, according to Pew data. However, while spending among Republicans has increased by six percentage points since 2021, from 16%, it has not decreased among Democrats.

“There’s a big, big gap,” said Eli Yokley, a US political analyst at Morning Consult, a non-partisan research group.

That gap first appeared in mid-2023, and “really took off around the time of the 2024 election,” Yokley said, citing Morning Consult data.

One possible reason for that change: Trump’s endorsement and adoption of crypto, Yokley said.

“As much as the crypto industry has been bipartisan, its priorities – deregulation and deregulation – have always depended on corporate-friendly processes, especially those associated with Republicans,” said Rick Claypool, director of research at Public Citizen, a non-profit consumer advocacy organization.

Trump’s stance on crypto has changed since his first term in office.

In 2019, Trump wrote on social media that he was “not a fan” of crypto, which he said was “unregulated” and “can facilitate illegal behavior, including drug trafficking and other illegal activities.”

However, within a few years, Trump had ventured into the digital assets business, increasing his family’s fortune.

In 2022, he launched his first collection of intangible tokens, better known as NFTs – a series of $99 digital trading cards featuring his cartoon characters in various heroic poses.

He and his family have since released other digital offerings, including more NFTs, the World Liberty Financial crypto venture, and the $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins.

The White House also pushed to make the US the “crypto capital of the world” during Trump’s second term in office, “including steps to allow crypto firms to become banks,” according to the Pew Research Center.

In the second quarter of 2025, the gap in the share of crypto usage has increased by almost 11 percent, according to Morning Consult data. Specifically, 27.9% of Republicans had bought or sold cryptocurrency in the past 12 months, compared to 17.3% of Democrats, it was found.

The gap has since narrowed to nearly five percentage points, from 23.6% to 17.7%, respectively, according to Morning Consult.

It’s hard to “disentangle” the rise of GOP crypto adoption from the Trump family’s adoption, Yokley said.

“There is no Obama coin,” he said. “There are Trump coins and Melania coins.”

However, politics is not the only driver, experts say.

Demographics such as age and gender are also important factors, as well as politics, that influence the diversity of crypto adoption, they said.

For example, about 74% of crypto traders are men, Yokley said, citing Morning Consult data.

“Women’s cautious approach to speculative investing explains a lot of this: Crypto traders carry a much higher consumer confidence and risk tolerance than the general public, and that skew is overwhelmingly male,” Yokley said.

Young people, in particular, are the “big receivers” of crypto in relation to other investors – a trend that is consistent with others, such as sports betting, where there are similar gaps in adoption, Yokley said.

Men under 45 traded in crypto at nearly twice the rate of women under 45 from 2022 to 2026— about 38% to 42% compared to 13% to 16%, respectively, according to Morning Consult.

Young investors have turned to widely considered investments such as meme stocks, exchange-traded funds, crypto, sports betting platforms and prediction markets, in what some experts call “financial nihilism.”

Young men are also “more ideologically oriented” than their peers, Yokley said.

“I think the biggest thing to be taken from here is that the gender gap is a bigger gap than politics,” he said. “But the gender gap is political, too.”