WASHINGTON, D.C.— It’s “Crypto Week” on the Hill, and the cryptocurrency industry is pushing again for a light-touch framework for crypto trading. However, the only thing truly light-touch is how little Main Street Americans appear to trust the industry, despite crypto’s best efforts to juice polls and fudge claims of broad support. The fact is, crypto polling paid for by the crypto industry tends to overstate crypto’s use among Americans and its salience as a galvanizing issue among.

“The industry’s legislative lobbying, political contributions, and paid surveys may buy short-term success for crypto, but crypto will not prove durable unless there’s a strong framework to instill trust among investors. Right now, crypto trading remains little more than another way to endanger the financial and economic health of American investors, and the polling backs this up” said Ben Schiffrin, Director of Securities Policy at Better Markets. “We need a financial system that supports the real productive economy and creates broad-based wealth, rather than a system focused on extracting wealth from those who already have too little. It’s clear that voters agree, despite what the crypto industry wants you to believe.”

Here are the facts:

The crypto industry has a long history of overstating the number of investors in the market and the importance of light-touch crypto regulation as an issue to voters.

• The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking found that only 7% of surveyed U.S. adults reported any use of crypto in 2023 (whether ownership, using as a payment, or using to send money to families or friends), down from 8% in 2022 and 11% in 2021. That number represents about half the figure often cited by the crypto industry.
• Only 4.8% of all households had owned or used crypto in the past 12 months, per the FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to or deeply skeptical of crypto.

• A Harris Poll commissioned by the crypto industry itself found that 69% of likely voters in six 2024 swing states had a negative view of asset.
• The Pew Research Center in 2024 found that 63% of Americans say they have little to no confidence that current ways to invest in, trade or use cryptocurrencies are reliable and safe. Among those who are familiar with crypto but have not invested in it, 82% say they are not very or at all confident in it.
• Increasing awareness and knowledge of crypto only heightens investors’ wariness of the industry.

Crypto industry polling often uses the demonstrated diversity of its consumer base to argue against regulatory guardrails.

• All crypto investors, regardless of their personal characteristics, deserve key safeguards from predation in the industry
• This so-called “research” conflates protecting crypto industry profits with protecting the diverse investors that trade in the market.

Crypto industry polls are designed to mislead. Low issue awareness doesn’t give a permission slip for lawmakers to ignore conflicts – instead, it is only an indicator that more light must be drawn to these egregious ethical concerns.

• Industry-commissioned polls are often designed to provide cover for lawmakers to ignore President Trump’s crypto conflicts.
• A new poll from the pro-crypto advocacy organization Cedar Innovation Fund shows that nearly 60% of respondents had not “seen, read, or heard anything recently” about how the president “has made millions of dollars” from his family’s crypto firm.

Don’t buy the hype – most male voters “don’t care about crypto,” says 2024 poll.

• A Newsweek poll of ahead of the 2024 election of showed that male voters between the ages of 18-29 found that crypto polled dead last in terms of importance for the young men surveyed, ahead of 28 separate issues polled – including inflation, immigration, healthcare, climate, and guns.

Crypto industry messaging is out of step with skyrocketing investor dissatisfaction.

• Reddit forums show how deeply frustrated users are with the lack of protections, difficultly in reaching customer service, and the prevalence of hacks and scams in the industry.
• Crypto represents only 1-2% of U.S. capital markets investments but 20% of the investor complaints received by the Securities and Exchange Commission in fiscal year 2024.

Read more in the 7.14.2025 Better Markets Substack “Voters Do Not Support Crypto’s Congressional Agenda.”

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Better Markets is a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent organization founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to promote the public interest in the financial markets, support the financial reform of Wall Street and make our financial system work for all Americans again. Better Markets works with allies—including many in finance—to promote pro-market, pro-business and pro-growth policies that help build a stronger, safer financial system that protects and promotes Americans’ jobs, savings, retirements and more. To learn more, visit www.bettermarkets.org.