Less than half of Americans feel the US financial system is meeting their economic needs, and that is according to a new national study from the DeFI Education Fund.
And some of the other findings from the study include 18% of Americans have owned or used crypto in their lifetime.
Only 25% of respondents believe the Trad system is designed to advantage ordinary people, and 23% of Americans say that banks charge reasonable fees for their.
Says perhaps this study points to an opportunity for Defi to gain ground on Tray in the minds of Americans.
Well joining me to break this down is Jen Rosenthal, chief communications officer at DFI Education Fund.
Jen, great to have you here.
Welcome.
I'm so happy to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Well, this is a fascinating and extensive study, isn't it?
So give us your take on the key takeaways and what surprised you?
Yeah, well, so take a step back.
DePI Education Fund is a nonpartisan nonprofit.
We are thinking about how to help build understanding of decentralized finance, particularly amongst policymakers and the general public, and so we're really always looking for ways to bridge that gap through education and informed dialogue.
So we're really excited to partner with Ipsos on this two part study.
We did the national survey and we did in-depth interviews where we actually talked to a bunch of New Yorkers and so the headline here is that Americans are increasingly Frustrated with the traditional finance system and they're really looking to take greater control over their own assets and data.
And so you know it's a really interesting way to kind of take a look at the current state of the financial system and the opportunities that things like financial technology innovations can unlock.
Yeah, and Jen, of course when we're talking about D5, that statistic about crypto, right, 18% of Americans have owned or used crypto, but only 3%.
Does that surprise you?
No, no.
So I do think it's worth highlighting.
So that's 1 in 5 Americans who have owned or used crypto at some point in their lifetime, and that number actually increases if you dig into the data and you start to look at millennials and you start to look at diverse communities and educated populations, you actually see that number increase to 1 in 4.
But DI, if you think about crypto as an ecosystem or an asset class to use traditional finance lingo.
DeFI is a sector of that, right?
And so for DEF DeFI Education Foundation and Fund, we're really always thinking about how do we build education around some of these topics to help shed light on the fact that this is actually a financial innovation because when we talk about crypto and this is from a coms perspective, you hear.
A lot about tokenization.
You hear a lot about token go up, token go down, but I think one of the most impressive things about this technology is that at its core blockchain is one of the most transformative innovations of our time, and we have the opportunity to really dig in with this research on that fact.
And you mentioned demographics, so I'm very curious about how the different generations see this sector.
Yeah, well, so millennials far and away, 1 in 4 are more likely to own crypto and as you might imagine, as you get older, less so.
But you know there's a lot of interest.
22% of Americans are interested in learning about decentralized finance, about alternative forms of finance, and that's a massive number, especially against the.
Backdrop of you know what we're seeing as like a decrease in trust in traditional finances.
And speaking of which, I think the older that you are, you might have reticence or reluctance when it comes to the sector.
So give us a better understanding of what you're seeing when it comes to financial security, what Americans actually believe and what do you think can be done when it comes to blockchain?
Yeah, you highlighted the stat in your introduction.
You said less than, you know, 29%. of Americans, which is a very low percent, trust the existing financial system.
And when you again dig further into that, 75%, nearly 75% of Americans are worried about cyber threats and are worried about things like AI.
And so when we talk about what the potential solution is, blockchain technology DI innovations are really interesting because they allow self ownership.
So Americans are saying they want greater control over their assets.
Well, DeFI allows you to do that.
You can They're your assets.
They say you maintain custody and control of those assets, and you can transact without a middleman when and where you feel like it.
And finally, before I let you go, yeah, tell me about the research and how you think this will help policy efforts.
Yeah, well, so at the Education Fund we are, we are a resource to all those who are interested, but particularly on the hill, we're meeting with folks on both sides of the aisle, policymakers and regulators, and so we will be bringing these results and these findings into those meetings.
Really help policymakers understand that this is something when we talk about crypto, when we talk about decentralized finance, this is something that their constituents are using and are really interested in exploring, especially as they are increasingly frustrated with the lack of trust and the fees that you find in traditional finance.
OK, Jen, well it was great having you on the show.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you for having me here.
