On paper, the stock market is for everyone. Download an app, buy a share, and suddenly you’re “investing”. But the truth is, the market is built to mostly benefit people who already own wealth, those who can afford to take risks, wait out losses, and hire professionals to manage their money. For a while, that belief started to crack with the advent of Bitcoin: a decentralized system that would remove government interference and open up finances to the world.
While some of these claims were true-ish, there were a lot of hurdles in the beginning. Being able to buy Bitcoin was hurdle #1 for most people, and in the early stages, you could barely give away your Bitcoins, given how limited the market was. This changed over the years, and as stories of overnight millionaires flooded the internet suddenly, everything looked more accessible, even rebellious. If someone with no finance background could turn a few thousand dollars into life-changing money, the system seemed less rigged. But these rare success stories were amplified far beyond actual reality. Inflation, rate hikes, and political polarization have made speculative investing feel riskier. Confidence in long-term policy direction weakens, and so does trust in speculative assets like cryptocurrency.
Looking at our national panel, trust in Bitcoin has been relatively low since 2021, when we started tracking this question. Overall, the average trust in Bitcoin was 25.78 (on a 0 to 100 scale). Earlier this week, it was up to 28.24. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, and the biggest predictor of trust is gender and age. Under 45 and male… a much higher level of trust. Women of any age, not so much. What is fascinating is that the price of Bitcoin and trust for men under 45 do not follow parallel paths. In fact, as the price goes down, trust tends to go up for this cohort.
Key Takeaways:
🙈🙉🙊 Correlation does not equal causation, but it could: While the conclusion might not stand up to a peer-reviewed study, the pattern over the past four months has been consistent. The price of Bitcoin goes down, trust among men under 45 goes up, and vice versa. One possible explanation is that trust is a stand-in for… Can I make some money off this investment? If the price of Bitcoin continues to head in a southern direction, trust could be through the roof with this cohort.
🚹🚺Crypto Trust: Women vs. Men: In contrast, trust among women under 45 in Bitcoin has remained steady over the past 45 months, showing far less fluctuation than that of their male counterparts. Trust in crypto is very low, with 27% having zero trust, 40% rate it between 0-9 out of 100, while only 13% have a very high level of trust (80 or above). Studies have also shown that women participate in Crypto at much lower levels than men, which generally makes sense given the data we are seeing.
🔵🔴Harris vs. Trump Voters: These days, partisanship is affecting everything, but that is not the case when it comes to Bitcoin. Over the past two months, Harris voters’ trust in crypto has remained largely stable, averaging between 17 and 17.5 out of 100. The majority (52%) rate their trust between 0-9, while only 11% score it above 50. In comparison, Trump voters averaged slightly higher at 25.4 to 25.8, with 51% rating trust 0-9 and 27% showing strong trust above 50. Some Trump voters may view crypto as a symbol of independence from traditional financial institutions and the traditional systems, but that is a small group dominated by… (you know the answer) men under 45.
