Updated Dec. 2, 2025, 10:42 a.m. ET
- A recent survey shows nearly half of Gen Z would be excited to receive cryptocurrency as a holiday gift.
- Cryptocurrency ownership is more common among younger men, according to Gallup polling.
- Bitcoin’s price has been volatile, recently declining after a dramatic rise in recent years.
- Experts suggest that if you are hesitant about crypto, gifting stocks or ETFs is a more traditional alternative.
Gen Z wants crypto for Christmas.
But how cool are their Gen X parents with putting digital currency under the virtual tree?
Crypto has gone mainstream as a holiday gift in 2025, Visa announced in a new survey, released Dec. 2.
Specifically, 45% of Gen Z said they would be excited to receive cryptocurrency as a gift.
Not everyone shares their enthusiasm. Only 28% of all consumers said they’d welcome crypto in their stocking. The survey, fielded in October by Morning Consult, reached 1,000 adults.
The Bitcoin roller coaster is plunging right now
The price of Bitcoin, the largest digital currency, has risen dramatically in recent years, a surge partly fueled by the advent of crypto ETFs and buoyed by enthusiastic support from President Donald Trump.
But Bitcoin’s price has plummeted lately. The decline comes amid volatility in the broader market, a scenario that drives investors away from riskier assets, such as crypto, according to an analysis by Investopedia.
With Bitcoin trading at a discount, the 2025 holiday season could mark the perfect time to buy some for your Gen Z child. Or not. It really depends on how you feel about crypto, experts say.
And that may depend on your age.
Crypto: Is it a young man’s game?
Crypto is largely a generational phenomenon. It’s also a guy thing. Gallup polling in mid-2025 found this breakdown of crypto ownership by age and gender:
- Men 18-49: 25% own crypto
- Men 50+: 12%
- Women 18-49: 8%
- Women 50+: 9%
Among millennials, “everybody knows someone who’s become a crypto millionaire,” said Craig J. Ferrantino, president of Craig James Financial Services in Melville, New York, speaking to USA TODAY in 2024.
Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, are crypto natives. The oldest Gen Zers reached adulthood after the initial release of Bitcoin in 2009.
Sam Taube, a lead investing writer at NerdWallet, is a younger millennial with peers “who have made a lot of money on crypto.” He thinks he knows why Gen Z is fond of the currency.
The COVID-19 inflation crisis is a defining economic event for Gen Z, Taube said. After witnessing nearly 10% annual inflation, many in Gen Z fear that “the 10% per year from the S&P 500 isn’t necessarily going to cut it, in inflation-adjusted terms,” he said. “People feel they need a bigger, bolder form of profitability to keep up with the cost of living.” Crypto could yield that profitability.
Gen Z’s parents, by contrast, may not even be capable of defining crypto convincingly.
“I think people of our generation are a bit more skeptical regarding crypto,” said Jason Moser, a senior investment analyst at The Motley Fool who has college-age children.
“I think the difficulty a lot of people have with crypto — and I have the same difficulty – it’s just not tangible,” Moser said. “You don’t know what it is. It’s just an algorithm. What happens when the lights go out?”
What exactly is crypto, anyway?
Cryptocurrency is digital money. It isn’t issued by governments or banks, so there’s no central authority. It exists instead on decentralized networks and uses a technology called blockchain, which tracks transactions and assets.
For years, ordinary investors who wanted to buy or sell digital currencies generally had to visit a crypto exchange, a potential drawback for the uninitiated. That changed in 2024, when federal regulators voted that ordinary American investors could buy and sell Bitcoin ETFs the same way they trade stocks.
Moser is a crypto skeptic. He wrestles with the idea that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value: It is only worth what someone is willing to pay.
“I can tell you why a stock price translates to value of that given company,” he said. “With crypto, it really does boil down to finding someone to pay you more for that crypto than you paid for it.”
Others are more sanguine about cryptocurrency.
“I think that in today’s modern portfolio, everyone needs a little exposure to cryptocurrency,” said Caleb Silver, editor in chief of Investopedia. “And by ‘a little,’ I mean no more than 5%” of that portfolio.
Bitcoin has risen in value from effectively zero to above $126,000, an all-time high, in October.
“If you look at the returns just of Bitcoin over the last 10 years, it’s the best-performing ‘asset’ – air quotes — in history,” Silver said. “Will it always be? It’s hard to know, but if you look at its price history, it’s undeniably been a good investment.”
Don’t like crypto? Try stocks.
If you like the idea of introducing a young adult to investing, but you’re not copacetic with crypto, here’s an obvious alternative: Stocks.
A parent can easily purchase individual stocks or shares of exchange-traded or mutual funds for a child. If the recipient is a minor, you can set up a custodial brokerage account in their name.
“Open a custodial account with your child and pick the stocks and exchange-traded funds together,” Silver said. “Make it a family affair. Do the research together learn why it’s important to invest.”
Moser suggests the gift-giver consider purchasing shares in a S&P 500 index ETF, a fund that invests across the entire S&P index.
“That, I think, is a great first step for people learning about investing and how to become investors,” he said. “It makes that next step of individual stock ownership a little easier.”
This story was updated to add new information.
