Fewer Women Own Crypto Than Men, But They HODL Just as Well: Report

Crypto is a man’s game? Not quite, according to a new report. In fact, women are just as likely to “HODL” as men are. 

That’s what New York-based crypto exchange Gemini said in a new survey of 6,000 people. Their report, “2024 Global State of Crypto,” found that while a gender gap in crypto still exists—with male investors on the whole outnumbering female ones—the number of people who bought digital assets and sat on them is the same between the two sexes. 

In the crypto world, to “HODL”—a misspelling of “hold” often said to stand for “hold on for dear life”—is to buy crypto and not sell it for an extended period of time... and especially through periods of market volatility. 

“The percentage of investors that acquired their first crypto over a year ago versus within the past 12 months is roughly the same between men and women, and actually higher for women in the U.K.,” the report said. “This statistic [leads] us to believe that women are just as likely as their male counterparts to buy and hold for the long term.”

The report—which surveyed people from the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Turkey, and Singapore—noted that 69% of those questioned identified as male, while 31% were female.

Of the five countries surveyed, Turkey had the highest representation of cryptocurrency investors (58%), followed by Singapore (26%), and then the U.S. (21%). France and the UK were tied at 18%.

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Looking at American investors, the report also said that one in 10 surveyed owned crypto exclusively through an exchange-traded fund (ETF).

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs in January, and then in May eight Ethereum ETFs. ETFs are popular investment vehicles aimed at democratizing investing that trade on stock exchanges. 

The long-awaited crypto funds now give investors the ability to buy shares that track the price of the two biggest digital coins by market cap—without having to hold the assets themselves. 

January’s launch of the Bitcoin funds was one of the most successful ETF launches of all time.