Almost no one is “happy” with the nation’s financial system— “only 9% of Americans are satisfied with it, and only 22% think it’s better than any other country’s,” according to an update shared by Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN).
But young people are “especially disillusioned by it,” the Coinbase report noted.
As stated in a blog post, just 7% say the financial system “works very well for people like them.”
And more than half (52%) say they “never or only sometimes use it.”
Fewer than one in five (17%) think “the US system is better than others, versus one in four people over age 40 (26%).”
New research for Coinbase examines “how young people experience and access the financial system (or not), where they think it falls short, and how they’re taking their future into their own hands and creating economic opportunity for themselves.”
Age. More than 100 million Millennials and Gen Z adults “grew up with the internet, mobile phones and apps.”
When Millennials had their early career prospects “undercut by the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession, they popularized marketplace apps to convert their free time and unused belongings into extra cash and drove a global phenomenon, the sharing economy. Gen Z had to adapt when the COVID-19 pandemic kept them locked down and living online, including socializing by gaming, learning to assign value to digital assets.”
They want legacy institutions to fit “within their lives, not the other way around, and to be able to manage and move their money through the financial system at the pace of the internet and around the world. Only 5% of Gen Z and Millennials call the system “speedy;” only 11% call it “innovative”—they’re much more likely to call it “political” and “expensive.” Of all generations, Millennials are most likely to call the system “outdated” (29%);” Gen Z are most likely to call it “confusing” (28%) as well as “exclusionary” (29%).”
Agency. As the current system “lets them down, young people are taking agency and building new paths to prosperity.”
They’re more likely than older generations “to want multiple sources of income (45%) and to have side gigs (32%).”
Millennials are the generation most likely “to want to work as hard as possible to achieve their goals (48%).”
Three fourths (77%) of Gen Z want “to choose their own paths rather than pursue the traditional path of college, homeownership, etc.”
Nearly two in five (38%) say crypto and blockchain can “increase economic opportunities for them in ways traditional finance can’t, versus 26% of older people.”
More than one in three (31%) own crypto, “versus 12% of older people.”
Young people are more interested in crypto than older people because it’s “a global currency that can be accessed and sent across the world (16% versus 10%).”
Half (51%) say they’re likely to “throw their weight behind crypto-friendly candidates in 2024.”