How many U.S. citizens own crypto?

I was recently having coffee with someone who is involved and very knowledgeable in the crypto space and we were both wondering what percentage of U.S. citizens are involved in cryptocurrency. Back in 2018 a bank survey estimated that only 3% of American citizens owned any cryptocurrency but surely that number is higher now but how much so. Coincidentally this article just appeared in the Wall Street Journal

JPMorgan Chase Institute: 13% of Americans Have Bought Into Crypto

By?David Benoit

Regulators and lawmakers debating how or whether to weigh in on cryptocurrency have struggled with some basic questions: How widespread is cryptocurrency ownership and how much could it impact the economy?

The JPMorgan Chase Institute on Monday?released fresh data ?culled from the actions of the customers of the biggest bank in the country that could help determine its reach into household wealth. In sum: A lot more people have moved some money into crypto, and probably lost a lot of it, but few have large amounts at risk.

The Institute,?the bank’s inhouse think tank , looked at transfers from Chase bank accounts to and from crypto accounts.

• They found ownership rising sharply: As of June, about 13% of all households had transferred funds into or out of a crypto account at least one time, up from 3% before the pandemic.
• But most people are dabbling. The median amount transferred totaled just $620 and the vast majority of people moved less than one month of their income into crypto.
• That’s probably good because the transfers surged as crypto prices soared last year. The typical transfer happened when bitcoin was around $43,900, the Institute determined. Bitcoin is now around $17,000.
• Who is doing it? Asian millennial men are by far the most likely to have invested in crypto, the data shows. Overall, men are more likely to have jumped in than women, and by age group it’s millennials. By income, ownership generally increases as income increases.

Chris Wheat, the president of the JPMorgan Chase Institute, said the group wanted to get some data on how the crypto phenomenon could impact the broader economy. That’s a question on the minds of Congress as they?hold hearings this week ?on the?collapse of FTX.

If 13% of Americans have plunged into crypto, it is a widespread investment, but the amounts may limit the concern it is a big economic risk. “It’s not clear to us that is or isn’t a lot,” Mr. Wheat said. “But it’s a concrete amount to look at.”

One takeaway is that many more people are now invested in crypto but because the median amount transferred from the Chase bank account was only around $620 it does not represent a systemic risk to the economy.