Voters Do Not Support Crypto’s Congressional Agenda

By Amanda Fischer, Policy Director & COO

The cryptocurrency industry is at the top of Congress’s agenda again this week. The Senate Committee on Banking on Wednesday hosted a hearing to consider legislation providing a light-touch regulatory framework for crypto trading and the House of Representatives is going so far as to declare it “Crypto Week.” That’s what a couple hundred million dollars in campaign contributions buys.

But, as the song goes, money can’t buy you love, and no matter how much it tries, the crypto industry is not only not loved but is not even liked by the American people.

That’s why the crypto industry has to resort to baseless advertising campaigns. For example, on Monday, July 7^th there were full page ads in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and elsewhere proclaiming “America Voted Pro-Crypto. It’s Time For Congress to Act.” The facts show that the claim is simply not true. Here’s just one remarkable example: a Harris Poll that was commissioned by the crypto industry itself found that 69% of likely voters in six 2024 swing states had a negative view of digital assets.

American voters are anti-crypto, which the crypto industry apparently knows because it choose not to mention crypto in the millions of dollars of ads bought during last year’s campaign. As the Wall Street Journal detailed, “Want a Crypto-Friendly Congress? Run Ads That Don’t Mention Crypto,” and as Politico reported, “Crypto has quietly become one of the biggest electoral players. You wouldn’t know it from their ads.” It’s a classic bait and switch tactic trying to deceive elected officials into thinking millions of Americans voted for crypto candidates and crypto’s agenda when they did not.

In addition to the baseless ads, the industry has also commissioned other polls that falsely downplay the myriad risks with crypto and oversell just how widespread and important it is among American voters and investors.

First up is a new poll from Cedar Innovation Fund – a pro-crypto advocacy organization who doesn’t disclose its funders – whose new survey appears to be an attempt provide cover for lawmakers to ignore President Trump’s crypto conflicts. According to Cedar, nearly 60% of respondents had not “seen, read, or heard anything recently” about how the president “has made millions of dollars” from his family’s crypto firm.

Cedar uses voters’ self-reported lack of knowledge as an argument for policymakers to plow ahead with crypto legislation that provides special treatment for the industry without any guardrails related to President Trump’s many crypto conflicts of interest. This talking point is deeply cynical: it is apparently meant to reassure lawmakers that they have permission to vote in favor of crypto corruption without fear of consequences from their constituents who, the poll claims, are unaware of the grift.

It makes sense why Cedar would want to reassure lawmakers that they should feel free to ignore the President’s conflicted business dealings. Separately, polling commissioned by those outside the crypto industry found that when voters were given a basic explanation of the President’s business dealings, 62% of voters were in favor of Congress prohibiting such conflicted arrangements in legislation. Crypto lobbyists have a lot riding on Americans’ ignorance, since they know the President’s conflicts are bad for business. One anonymous industry source underscored the ickiness of the President’s World Liberty financial crypto company, saying, “These people, they hate us…They announce a new product every time there's a key vote. During the markup yesterday, Eric Trump is [expletive] tweeting about World Liberty and their new stablecoin. It's just insane.”

Another new poll from Paradigm, a venture capital firm that invests in crypto companies, takes a different tact, endeavoring to “map” crypto voters by political affiliation, consumer preferences, and opinions. The upshot of Paradigm’s poll is that crypto owners are diverse across a variety of political and demographic affiliations. But, even if true, so what? All crypto investors, regardless of their personal characteristics, deserve key safeguards from predation in the industry. Paradigm’s polling conflates protecting crypto industry profits with protecting the diverse investors that trade in the market.

These latest polls are nothing new. The crypto industry has a history of overstating the number of investors in the market and the importance of light-touch crypto regulation as an issue to voters. Data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking found that only 7% of surveyed U.S. adults reported any use of crypto in 2023 (whether ownership, using as a payment, or using to send money to families or friends), down from 8% in 2022 and 11% in 2021. That number represents about half the figure often cited by the crypto industry and their cheerleaders in Congress, taken from a survey commissioned by a crypto trading platform. Other reliable government data, including the FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, found that an even lower 4.8% of all households had in the past 12 months owned or used crypto.

Other polling from independent sources validates this point. The Pew Research Center in 2024 found that 63% of Americans say they have little to no confidence that current ways to invest in, trade or use cryptocurrencies are reliable and safe. What’s even starker is that among those who are familiar with crypto but have not invested in it, 82% say they are not very or at all confident in it. In other words, increasing awareness and knowledge of crypto only heightens investors’ wariness of the industry.

And in terms of political salience, it’s hard to say that crypto is a top tier issue for voters, even for those in demographics that represent an outsized share of crypto investors. One poll before the 2024 election of male voters between the ages of 18-29 found that of 28 separate issues polled – including inflation, immigration, healthcare, climate, guns and others – crypto polled dead last in terms of importance for the young men surveyed.

The takeaway is that crypto polling paid for by the crypto industry tends to overstate crypto’s use among Americans and its salience as a galvanizing issue. But setting aside whatever conflicting surveys say, policymakers should take caution not to confuse the interests of crypto industry titans with the average investor in crypto. One need only go to Reddit forums to see how deeply frustrated users are with the lack of protections, difficultly in reaching customer service, and the prevalence of hacks and scams in the industry. There is a reason why crypto represents only 1-2% of U.S. capital markets investments but 20% of the investor complaints received by the Securities and Exchange Commission in fiscal year 2024. And, as the FBI’s latest report shows, it’s boom times for crypto crimes, which, even if they are not directly victimized, Americans see every day in the headlines.

The industry’s advertising campaigns, legislative lobbying, political contributions, and paid surveys may buy short-term political success for crypto. However, the industry will not prove durable unless there’s a strong and effective framework to protect customers, investors, and financial stability. Only that will instill trust, confidence, and maybe even a little love among investors.

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