US share of global crypto activity: 36% of hashrate, 12% of wallet users

Grayscale Research estimates that the United States accounts for 15-20% of global crypto activity, which leaves 80-85% elsewhere. Head of research Zach Pandl published the note on 28 October under the title “Crypto Will Move Forward Regardless of Outcome of US Midterms”. So the US share of global crypto activity is smaller than the attention Washington gets.

Americans voted on 3 November. Grayscale’s argument for you as an investor: whoever controls Congress from January, four fifths of crypto activity happens outside US borders.

Fourteen indicators, one range

Grayscale built the range from 14 indicators drawn from sources including Chainalysis, Kaiko, Electric Capital, TRM Labs, the Bank for International Settlements and the University of Cambridge. The US share runs from 12% to 36%, with a median of 16% and a mean of 19%. crypto.news published the full breakdown.

Some inputs are narrow. The crypto holder and stablecoin payment estimates cover all of North America, the stablecoin holder figure covers Phantom wallet users only, and the merchant payment count comes from CoinGate alone. The observations span 2023 to 2026 depending on the indicator, and Grayscale calls the result an approximation.

Machines, money, people

We sorted the 14 indicators into three groups. The US share falls as you move from machines to people:

• infrastructure, average 26%: bitcoin hashrate 36%, Ethereum full nodes 31%, developers 21%, Solana stake 17%;
• money flows, average 21%: onchain transaction value 26%, stablecoin payment value 24%, merchant payments 22%, cross-border flows 16%, spot trading volume 15%;
• people, average 13%: protocol website visitors 14%, crypto holders 13%, stablecoin holders 13%, exchange website visitors 13%, mobile wallet users 12%.

Mining goes where power and capital are cheap, and US miners have both, so the hashrate share is three times the mobile wallet share. Users follow population. The US has about 4% of the world’s people, so even 12% of wallet users is three times its population share.

Cambridge’s 2025 mining survey put the US at 75.4% of surveyed activity. That survey covered 49 firms with about 48% of network hashrate, and American firms answered in larger numbers, so the 75.4% describes the sample only.

Where the rest of the market is

Grayscale does not split the other 80-85% by country. The Chainalysis adoption index for July 2025 to June 2026 put Brazil first among 117 countries, and Ukraine ranked seventh. Japan, South Korea, Thailand, South Africa and Canada entered the top ten that year.

What it means for you

Washington still sets the rules for US exchange-traded funds and stablecoins, and the CLARITY Act still lacks votes in the Senate. Colin McLaren of the Solana Policy Institute expects the SEC and the CFTC, not Congress, to write crypto rules for the next two years. By Grayscale’s count, those rules reach about a fifth of crypto activity directly.

US shares come from Grayscale’s estimate; the three groups and their averages are our calculation. Grayscale’s figures mix periods and coverage, so read each one as an approximation.