Millennials Are Hoarding Crypto and Shopping Like Goblins, Survey Finds 🤯

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The fine people at CouponFollow (yes, that’s a real name, not a lost Discworld guild) recently decided the world needed to know what millennials are up to. The result: a tome cunningly titled “Millennial Shopping Habits.” Over 1,100 Americans, aged 29–44, were bravely surveyed while presumably waiting for their oat milk lattes. The report features a tantalizing section on cryptocurrency, which, given the price of avocados, is apparently what half of millennials now invest in instead of a retirement plan. Spoiler: 53% claim to own crypto—though one suspects some were confused and just meant they had forgotten their passwords again. (Crypto’s greatest security feature: amnesia.)

The whole thing was conducted with a scientific rigor only seen in weather predictions and horoscopes, back in February 2025. Sixty percent of respondents identified as women, with the rest fighting valiantly on the other side. The study even compares binge-shopping behavior to data dredged up from 2022 and 2019, because everything old is suddenly retro again. However, the crypto results are left to float alone, unanchored by any notion of history—perhaps due to the Heisenberg Principle of Cryptocurrency: the more you look for past data, the less you understand the present.

So, What’s Hotter Than a Dragon’s Breath? Crypto & AI! 🐉🤖

The Trend Report 2025 reveals that AI and crypto are mingling into millennial life like two wizards who just found a common spellbook. AI helps shop without the tedium of thinking, while crypto is used both to pay and as a kind of digital mattress-stuffing. A glorious 54% said they tap AI for shopping—while 53% said they actually own some crypto. And yes, that’s a lot of counting, but millennials love statistics almost as much as they love brunch.

Meanwhile, 7% have miraculously never heard of crypto—probably living under a stone, or perhaps, more sensibly, using it for a nice bit of shade. Forty percent are “aware” but don’t own any, which is just a polite way of saying their wallets are as empty as their digital coin purses. Digging deeper, over 55% of under-40s claim to own crypto, dropping to 45% among those approaching the venerable age of 44—at which point some either give up on crypto or quietly hope it’ll go away.

The gender divide is real: 66% of male respondents boast ownership (possibly confusing “owning” with “Googling Bitcoin”), while only 45% of women do. That said, a suspiciously precise 4% of men and 10% of women have never so much as heard a whisper of crypto. Perhaps they thought Bitcoin was a new kind of yoga pose.

And how do these newly-minted (pun fully intended) crypto-owners use their treasure? A very enthusiastic 8% of all surveyed millennials use crypto “whenever possible”—including, presumably, wishing at fountains and paying for coffee in obscure tokens. Bizarrely, this means that among actual crypto-owners, about 15% turn every shopping trip into a quest for a shop that accepts anything ending with “coin.”

On the opposite end, some 20% of crypto-owners never, ever use it for shopping, possibly because you can’t yet pay taxes with it or summon a pizza. Most, however (64%—and you have to love a number that comes with its own decimal point), do use crypto from time to time, presumably when their credit card sobs “not again!”

Of those who actually spend their cryptic fortune, 62% bought a thrilling “one to five” things over an entire year. Only an elite 4% splurged ten or more times—a group surely destined for fame, fortune, and regular audits. Forty-two percent of all respondents admit to some kind of crypto purchase, and a gutsy one in five millennials made six or more, bravely entering the Wild West one online checkout at a time.

What Else Makes Millennials Empty Their Wallets?

If you thought it was just about crypto, think again. Discounts of 20% or more will get half of all millennials to abandon their favorite brand faster than they scroll past news about stock market crashes. Free shipping, free trials, and shiny gifts are basically the new form of social currency, outshining even the rarest meme NFTs.

Curiously, by 2025, millennials are rediscovering the ancient joys of in-store shopping—though, as always, online still reigns supreme. Laptops and desktops are out (too many keys, not enough likes), replaced by relentless mobile scrolling. And on Amazon? If it’s not in the top results, it might as well be on another planet. Meanwhile, TikTok has become the oracle of shopping wisdom for women, while men presumably still ask Jeeves.

Are Millennials Really the Crypto-Generation? 🧙‍♂️

Apparently so, according to Bankrate in 2021, which crowned millennials as crypto’s chosen ones, brimming with digital bravado and the hope that Dogecoin is secretly run by elves. Statista agrees, after comparing more countries than there are versions of “The Office.”

But in a plot twist only a survey could conjure, another 2025 CryptoQuant study puts the youngest millennials and the oldest Gen Z as crypto’s true champions. This age group (25–34) makes up 35% of all crypto holders, spending more time explaining NFTs to their parents than actually using them.

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2025-04-30 18:47