Low Millennial financial well-being drives crypto adoption: report

Data shows that Millennials in the United States are flocking to alternative financing methods such as crypto assets to boost their financial well-being.

A report titled The State of Consumer Banking & Payments by Morning Consult in January found that Millennials are adopting new technologies to help them make financial decisions at a higher rate than any other generation. The author of the report, financial services analyst Charlotte Principato, combined data from 50,000 different respondents to monthly surveys conducted in the U.S. and internationally from July to December 2021.

Principato stated in email comments to Cointelegraph today that the increase in the use of cryptocurrency in 2021 was an outlier among the statistics that jumped out to her while putting together the report. She said,

“Although a volatile asset, cryptocurrency has successfully held the interest of consumers around the world and continued to grow.”

By last December, about 48% of Millennial households owned cryptocurrency, up from only about 30% in June. During the same time period, 20% of all U.S. adults reported owning cryptocurrency.

Millennials’ use of alternative financial services such as cryptocurrencies may be due to the fact that they suffered from financial well-being scores which remained “persistently lower than the national average” since June 2021, according to the report. The global average by last December was 50.98, but the Millennial group lingered at 49.54. 

Principato told Cointelegraph that reduced financial well-being was a trend she noticed over the last seven months. She attributes the decline to “the Delta and Omicron variants, and rising inflation in the U.S., which has not fully recovered.”

Morning Consult’s website states that The financial well-being score is determined by a scale that “includes 10 questions for gauging present and future security and freedom of choice, touching on consumers’ control over their finances, their capacity to absorb financial shocks and their trajectory to meet their financial goals.”

While Millennials in general are the leaders, crypto owners are “disproportionately high-earning Millennial men.” 70% of Millennial men use crypto, 25% of them earning over $100,000 annually. 

Interestingly, Hispanic people have a higher rate of crypto use than their representation in the general adult population. About 16% of all U.S. adults are Hispanic, but they account for 24% of all crypto owners.

As cryptocurrency became more mainstream throughout 2021, respondents from every generation polled from Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Z adults were increasingly likely to consider making purchases from U.S. exchange Coinbase. 

Related: 70% of US crypto holders started investing in 2021: Report

The results from the report led Principato to conclude that “Cryptocurrency will boom in 2022.” The report stated that the adoption of crypto and onboarding younger generations will be two main factors leading to the boom.