Data shows Republicans are buying more cryptocurrencies than Democrats

There appears to be a political slant in the adoption of cryptocurrencies and a large gender disparity.

Data shows that Republicans have embraced cryptocurrencies more aggressively than Democrats in recent years, consistent with President Donald Trump entering his second term in the White House and broadly supporting and engaging with the cryptocurrency industry.

Approximately 22% of Republicans said they have invested in, traded, or used the following cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin or etherIn contrast, 17% of Democrats use cryptocurrencies, according to a Pew Research Center poll released June 8. Pew surveyed 8,512 U.S. adults at the end of January.

“[Cryptocurrency]has always had a liberal bent, and early adopters tended to align with that ethos, which is a skepticism of centralized power and government solutions,” said Colin McLaren, director of government relations at the Solana Institute for Policy Studies, a nonprofit that advocates for the crypto industry.

“Its ideological DNA maps more naturally to right-wing instincts, so it’s not surprising that Republican ownership increases as technology becomes more mainstream,” McLaren said.

Pew said recent research has revealed partisan differences regarding investors’ use of cryptocurrencies.

Prior to 2026, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were just as likely as Republicans and Republican-leaning independents to say they owned cryptocurrencies, according to Pew data. However, while usage among Republicans has increased by 6 percentage points since 2021, from 16%, the rate has remained unchanged among Democrats.

“There’s a huge partisan divide,” said Eli Yokeley, a U.S. political analyst at the nonpartisan research group Morning Consult.

Yokeley, citing data from Morning Consult, said the gap started to emerge around mid-2023 and “really widened around the 2024 election.”

Possible reasons for that change include President Trump’s support and the adoption of cryptocurrencies, Yokeley said.

“Despite the crypto sector claiming to be bipartisan, its priorities – deregulation and de-enforcement – ​​have always tilted toward business-friendly policies that are mostly, but not exclusively, associated with Republicans,” said Rick Claypool, research director at consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen.

President Trump’s stance on virtual currencies has changed since his first term in office.

President Trump wrote on social media in 2019 that he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrencies, saying they were “unregulated” and “could facilitate illegal activities, including drug trafficking and other illegal activities.”

But within a few years, Trump expanded into the digital asset business, increasing his family’s wealth.

In 2022, he launched his first collection of non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs. This is a $99 digital “trading card” series featuring cartoon drawings of him in various heroic poses and costumes.

Since then, he and his family have debuted other digital products, including additional NFTs, the World Liberty Financial Crypto Venture, $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins.

The White House is also pushing to make the United States the “crypto capital of the world” during President Trump’s second term, which “includes measures to allow crypto companies to become banks,” according to the Pew Research Center.

By the second quarter of 2025, the partisan gap in crypto usage peaked at about 11 percentage points, according to Morning Consult data. Specifically, they found that 27.9% of Republicans had bought or sold cryptocurrencies in the past 12 months, compared to 17.3% of Democrats.

The gap has since narrowed to about 5 percentage points, 23.6% and 17.7%, respectively, according to Morning Consult.

Yokeley said it’s difficult to “separate” the Republican Party’s increased adoption of cryptocurrencies from the Trump family’s support for cryptocurrencies.

“Obama coins don’t exist,” he said. There are Trump coins and Melania coins.

But experts say politics is not the only factor.

They said demographics such as age and gender are also important factors, along with politics, influencing fluctuations in cryptocurrency adoption.

For example, about 74% of crypto traders are male, Yokeley said, citing data from Morning Consult.

“Women’s more cautious approach to speculative investing explains much of this. Cryptocurrency traders have significantly higher consumer confidence and risk tolerance than the general population, which is overwhelmingly male,” Yokeley said.

Yokeley said that compared to other investors, young men in particular are “avid supporters” of cryptocurrencies, a trend that is consistent with other investors such as sports betting, which have similar disparities in adoption rates.

According to Morning Consult, from 2022 to 2026, men under the age of 45 will trade cryptocurrencies at roughly twice the rate as women under the age of 45, at approximately 38%-42% vs. 13%-16%, respectively.

Young investors broadly are turning more readily to speculative investments such as meme stocks, leveraged exchange-traded funds, cryptocurrencies, sports betting platforms and prediction markets, a trend some experts are calling “financial nihilism.”

Yokeley also said that young men are “becoming a little more ideologically conservative” than their peers.

“I think the important thing here is that the gender gap is a much bigger gap than politics,” he said. “But the gender gap is also political.”