Next week, Americans head to the polls in one of the most divided political climates in memory. It’s tempting to sort every issue into red and blue, and some have tried to cast crypto as a partisan battle. But, data shows that American voters see it differently.
The DeFi Education Foundation asked Ipsos on KnowledgePanel to survey Americans about the state and future of finance. When we looked at the results by party, the party divide never showed up.
Republicans (15%) and Democrats (13%) are nearly identical in how important they say it is for a political candidate to encourage the growth of emerging financial technologies like blockchain, crypto, and decentralized finance. Support for new rules and regulations that allow innovation in the financial system to take place is exactly the same in both parties: more than 1 in 4 of American Republicans and Democrats (27% each). And, when we asked which financial innovation priority matters most, both parties gave the same answer: it’s important to ensure “that those building the next generation of financial technology are encouraged to do so in the United States.”
The state of finance is a system in transition. Americans want a financial system that is more secure, transparent, and in their control: only about 3 in 10 Americans (31%) strongly agree that the financial system works well for “people like them,” no traditional financial institution earns complete or a lot of trust from even half of Americans, and only about half of Americans (49%) feel they have personal control over their financial assets.
On the future of finance, Americans seem to agree on a direction: they want a financial system that keeps up with the times. Nearly 2 in 3 Americans (63%) say the financial system needs to be upgraded to combat new threats like cybercrime and AI. Three in four Americans (74%) say financial privacy is important to them. Two in three Americans (66%) want access to their money at all times. These are basic expectations of people living largely digital lives.
And Americans are already acting on those expectations. More than 1 in 5 Americans have now owned or used crypto, up from 18% from 2025. 2 in 5 Americans say they’d be at least somewhat likely to try decentralized finance, and those likely to try it want it for everyday finance: more than 8 in 10 would use it to save money, send money to family, and earn interest.
The data simply does not fit the partisan story that some are trying to sell. Treating crypto as a political battleground only makes it harder to build the secure, transparent, American-made financial system that most Americans say they want. At its core, crypto is financial technology infrastructure, and political leaders who treat it that way will find the public already on their side.
Explore the research findings at research.defieducationfund.org.