U.S. — Twenty-two percent of Republicans reported investing in, trading, or using cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin or ether, in 2026, according to a Pew Research Center poll published on June 8. This represents a six-percentage-point increase for Republicans since 2021, when 16% used crypto, while crypto use among Democrats remained unchanged at 17%.

The partisan gap in cryptocurrency usage began to emerge around mid-2023. Eli Yokley, a U.S. politics analyst, said the gap in crypto usage "really took off around the time of the 2024 election." Morning Consult data indicated that by the second quarter of 2025, the partisan gap in crypto use peaked at about 11 percentage points, with 27.9% of Republicans having bought or sold cryptocurrency in the previous 12 months, compared to 17.3% of Democrats.

Colin McLaren, head of government relations at the Solana Policy Institute, stated that crypto has "always had a libertarian streak, and its early adopters tended to align with that ethos — skepticism of centralized power and government solutions." He added that this "ideological DNA maps more naturally onto the right's instincts, so it's not surprising to see Republican ownership tick up as the technology goes mainstream." Rick Claypool, research director at Public Citizen, said that "even as the crypto sector claimed to be bipartisan, its priorities — deregulation and withdrawn enforcement — always leaned toward corporate-friendly policies that are mostly, though not exclusively, associated with Republicans."

In 2019, Donald Trump wrote on social media that he was "not a fan" of crypto, calling it "unregulated" and capable of facilitating "unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity." However, in 2022, he launched his first collection of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), followed by other digital offerings, including additional NFTs, the World Liberty Financial crypto venture, and $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins. Yokley noted that "there are Trump coins and Melania coins," adding, "There's no Obama coin."

The White House has pursued policies to establish the U.S. as the "crypto capital of the world" during Donald Trump's second term in office. This has included steps to allow crypto firms to become banks. The partisan gap in crypto use has since narrowed to approximately five points, with 23.6% for Republicans and 17.7% for Democrats.

About 74% of crypto traders are men. Men under age 45 traded crypto at roughly twice the rate of women under age 45 from 2022 to 2026, at about 38% to 42% compared to 13% to 16%, respectively. Yokley explained that "women's more cautious approach to speculative investing explains much of this: Crypto traders carry significantly higher consumer confidence and risk tolerance than the general population, and that skew is overwhelmingly male." He also stated that "young men have also 'become a bit more conservative on the ideological spectrum' relative to their peers." The Pew Research Center surveyed 8,512 U.S. adults at the end of January.