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Digital platforms helped make cryptocurrencies more visible and easier to access, especially through exchange apps that let people enter crypto markets. Online discussion also spreads information and market narratives, but available evidence does not show that social media alone caused crypto’s popularity. Nor does awareness or investment ownership mean that people commonly use crypto to pay for everyday purchases.
What digital platforms changed
Platforms contributed in two different ways: exchange apps provided a route to acquire and trade cryptoassets, while websites and social channels made crypto-related information and conversation easier to encounter. Those functions can reinforce each other, but the evidence measures them differently. Awareness is not the same as opening an account, owning crypto, or using it to make a payment.
Exchange apps made market entry more accessible
In the UK, 73% of cryptoasset users said they used a centralized exchange to obtain cryptoassets in the Financial Conduct Authority’s 2025 survey, four percentage points more than in 2024. The FCA also found that 91% of the UK public were aware of cryptoassets. These figures have different denominators: the first describes cryptoasset users and their acquisition channel; the second concerns public awareness. Neither figure means that the same share of the public owns crypto or uses it regularly. FCA, Research Note: Cryptoassets consumer research 2025
Online conversation increased visibility, not necessarily understanding
Social networks, forums, and other digital channels can circulate news, opinions, and narratives about crypto. But visibility should not be confused with reliable knowledge. A 2024 De Nederlandsche Bank working paper using Dutch household data found that relying on social media or friends for information did not improve respondents’ knowledge about cryptocurrencies. That finding is specific to the study’s population and design; it does not establish that every online source is unhelpful or that all users learn nothing from digital channels. De Nederlandsche Bank, What Drives Households’ Knowledge about Cryptocurrencies?
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How do crypto exchange apps make it easier to buy cryptocurrency?
An exchange app can put account access, market information, and buying or trading functions in one digital interface. This reduces practical friction compared with needing to find and navigate a separate route into the market. In the FCA’s UK 2025 survey, centralized exchanges were the most common reported way for cryptoasset users to obtain cryptoassets. The survey describes users’ acquisition channels; it does not establish that an app by itself caused them to adopt crypto or that app use led to lasting ownership.
Did platforms cause cryptocurrency adoption?
Evidence supports a connection between crypto prices and entry through exchange apps, but it does not show that platforms alone caused broad or durable adoption. A Bank for International Settlements working paper analyzed daily exchange-app use in 95 countries from 2015 through 2022. The authors found that rising Bitcoin prices were followed by new users entering exchange apps; analyses using two external price shocks also found significant effects on entry. They interpret the pattern as price-driven adoption involving feedback trading: price movements can attract entrants, and the resulting attention and activity can feed market narratives. This is evidence about the study’s historical dataset and methods, not a universal rule or a current estimate of app use. The authors also estimated that roughly three-quarters of retail entrants likely lost money on their initial investment; that is an estimate, not a directly observed loss rate for every entrant. BIS, Crypto trading and Bitcoin prices: evidence from a new database of retail adoption
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Does crypto popularity mean people use it for payments?
In US Federal Reserve survey results for 2025, investment ownership was much more common than payment use: 9% of adults said they bought or held cryptocurrency as an investment, while 2% said they used it to buy something or make a payment and 1% said they used it to send money to friends or family. Respondents could select more than one use. These self-reported figures distinguish holding crypto as an investment from using it as a means of payment. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, The Fed — Banking: Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025
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What the evidence does—and does not—show
- Access: Exchange apps offer a route into crypto markets, and UK survey respondents who used crypto commonly reported acquiring it through centralized exchanges.
- Attention: Digital channels can make crypto more visible and circulate market narratives, but the cited evidence does not quantify a causal effect of social-media exposure on adoption.
- Entry: BIS analysis links Bitcoin price rises with subsequent exchange-app entry in its 2015–2022, 95-country dataset; it does not prove that apps alone created mass adoption.
- Use: US survey evidence shows investment holding was more common than paying with crypto or sending it to other people.
- Understanding: The Dutch household study cautions that relying on social media or friends did not improve crypto knowledge in its study population.
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