One Big Question: Is Cryptocurrency a Scam?
Among Americans with an opinion about cryptocurrency, 72% see it as an overhyped scam while only 28% consider it an exciting and important technology.
Introducing a new Commonplace feature, “One Big Question,” where we’ll dive into the results of a poll question that helps to understand what matters in America. Today, we’re taking a look at cryptocurrency, with a question that American Compass first asked last March.
The nonstop cryptocurrency talk in Washington suggests an issue for which the American public must have deep interest and enthusiasm. In its 2024 platform, the Republican Party listed “Crypto” first among the emerging industries it would champion. Item three in Kamala Harris’s five-point “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” was “protect cryptocurrency investments.” President Donald Trump has promised to make the United States “the crypto capital of the world” while Senator Chuck Schumer declared, “we all believe in the future of crypto.”
But by “we all,” Schumer must have meant his audience at a “Crypto4Harris” fundraiser, because the rest of America has a different answer. In a survey of 1,000 Americans, conducted last year in partnership with YouGov, American Compass put the question directly:
Many politicians and investors are excited about the potential of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Which of the following is closest to your view of cryptocurrencies?
This is an exciting and important technology that the government should support
This is an overhyped technology that seems more like a scam than a useful product
I don’t know much about them but want to learn more
I don’t know much about them and don’t care
Overall, only 53% of Americans had an opinion of cryptocurrencies, while 47% said they did not know much about them—and of those who did not know, most said they don’t care.
Among those with an opinion, 72% see cryptocurrency as an overhyped scam, while only 28% consider it an exciting and important technology.
Skepticism runs high across Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; the lower, working, and middle classes; and both men and women. The upper class comes closest to support, but is still 57/43 against.
Even when zooming in on a group like young men, widely perceived to be the most interested in and supportive of cryptocurrencies, fewer than one in three are excited.
If there’s a case for crypto, neither the industry nor its political backers have made it convincingly to the public. In their defense, that task would be a difficult one, because cryptocurrencies have proven themselves useful for little besides high-risk speculation, grift, and outright fraud.
Perhaps the pandering to this particular special interest is lucrative, but leaders hoping to build popular support for their agendas would be wise to focus elsewhere, or work actively to limit the damage from what has become a poorly understood online casino. One good place to start would be preventing the allocation of tax-advantaged retirement accounts to such speculative assets. For more on this policy issue, see:
Oren Cass, No Alternative Assets in Tax-Advantaged Retirement Accounts, American Compass, January 2026
Michael Lind, “No Mad Money on the Taxpayer Dime,” Commonplace, September 2025
Yes. A scam now green lighted by the President to personally enrich himself. You would never say such a thing plainly though, that would undermine your whole shtick of reverse engineering the regime’s obviously incoherent economic and financial policies.
So, what function does crypto serve? It is a "currency"? It acts like money in certain ways. Is it better than what we now use? The short answer is no. As a currency two things distinguish it from the status quo. It is largely unregulated and it is difficult to monitor and trace. It also requires the internet to function at all and the energy costs of using it are extremely high. It's not entirely clear who bears those energy costs in the end. The fact that it is "untraceable" is supremely useful... to criminals. The fact that it is unregulated is supremely useful... to scammers.
Credit cards seemed to provide some level of convenience to buyers and sellers. But more and more small businesses are recognizing the reality of 3% transaction costs, which are truly obscene, and either charge that directly to the customer or offer a discount for Not using a credit card. It seems ridiculous that we, consumers and citizens, have let the financial sector leech profits off of basic buying and selling. Like cash, electronic transactions should be "nationalized". They should be part of the basic Federal infrastructure. We should pay the actual cost of implementing that system and No More. Actual credit is the purview of banks, not transaction fees for de facto currency.
Could blockchain be used in such a system to the benefit of honest legal business and financial transactions? And would it be worth the energy expense and the subsequent vulnerability of internet failure? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Crypto seems like an additional avenue to fleece consumers. But nobody seems to be looking at the possibility of ending legal entrenched leeching of wealth through excessive privatized transaction costs. And no one will until voters, and not Big Money interests, control our democracy.