Crypto Trust Declines but Adoption and Use Rising

We have good news and bad news. The bad news is trust in cryptocurrencies dropped precipitously in 2022, dropping 30 percentage points on average across 17 major markets, according to Morning Consult.  This was, of course, the effect of the dramatic drop in prices and a number of headline making collapses.

But the good news is that despite the trust index decline, retail use of cryptocurrencies is still strong.

In 18 of 42 countries surveyed, at least 20 percent of adults said they used cryptocurrencies in the second half of 2022. Low and lower-middle-income countries saw the highest adoption rates in 2022, with 35% of the general population in countries in those categories reporting retail use. This increasing adoption rate and concurrent drop in trust could mean increased regulatory scrutiny in the coming year, but we shall see. 

Full details of the Morning Consult survey are available here.