Ripple's Garlinghouse says crypto is no longer a fringe industry

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said crypto has moved firmly into the mainstream, u.Today reported, posting on X after attending a White House crypto summit alongside President Trump, SEC Chair Paul Atkins, CFTC Chair Michael Selig, and other industry leaders.

“Crypto isn't a fringe industry. The crypto voter is alive and well.”

— Brad Garlinghouse, CEO, Ripple

Garlinghouse pointed to the National Cryptocurrency Association's 2026 State of Crypto Holders Report, produced with The Harris Poll from a survey of 10,000 crypto holders. The report puts US crypto ownership at more than 67 million people, roughly one in four American adults, and found that holders increasingly use digital assets beyond investment: for payments, sending money to family and friends, financial management, charitable giving, and business activities.

Interest keeps growing among people who already hold crypto as much as new entrants. Nearly two-thirds of respondents, 63%, said they were more interested in using crypto in 2026 than in 2025. The report also found the typical holder profile broadening: female ownership rose 10% year over year, and women made up 42% of people who entered the crypto economy in 2025 and 2026, compared with 34% among earlier adopters. Crypto ownership isn't concentrated among high earners either. Ninety percent of holders make less than $500,000 a year, and 23% make $75,000 or less.

• US crypto holders, per the NCA report: more than 67 million, about 1 in 4 adults
• Holders more interested in crypto in 2026 than 2025: 63%
• Growth in female crypto ownership year over year: 10%
• Share of 2025-2026 new entrants who are women: 42%, versus 34% among earlier adopters
• Holders earning under $500,000 a year: 90%

The data lands alongside a shift in tone from regulators at the same summit. CFTC Chair Selig said the era of "political lawfare, debanking, and regulation by enforcement" was over and argued the next generation of finance is being built in the US. Atkins pressed for clearer rules for crypto entrepreneurs and companies trying to raise capital through digital assets, a theme that echoes the SEC's own Regulation Crypto Assets proposal from earlier this week. Garlinghouse has made a similar demographic argument before, pushing back in early August against a Wall Street Journal characterization of crypto holders as mostly young men by citing the same 67 million figure from the NCA data. The consistency of the number across both moments suggests the industry has settled on it as its go-to talking point for the mainstream-adoption argument.

The source of the data is worth naming directly. Ripple itself launched the National Cryptocurrency Association in 2025 with a $50 million grant, and the group's president, Stuart Alderoty, is Ripple's own chief legal officer. That doesn't make the survey's numbers wrong. The Harris Poll ran the fieldwork, and the 10,000-person sample size is real. But Garlinghouse citing a report from an organization his own company built and funds is closer to a company amplifying its own research than an outside validator confirming crypto's mainstream status. Readers weighing how much to trust the 67 million figure should factor that ownership into the equation, even as they note the underlying survey methodology holds up on its own terms.

Nothing here should be taken as financial advice — just information to consider.