Gen Z wants crypto for Christmas. Will their Gen X parents buy it?

Gen Z wants crypto for Christmas.

But however chill are their Gen X parents with putting digital currency under the virtual tree?

Crypto has gone mainstream arsenic a vacation acquisition successful 2025, Visa announced in a caller survey, released Dec. 2.

Specifically, 45% of Gen Z said they would beryllium excited to receive cryptocurrency arsenic a gift.

Not everyone shares their enthusiasm. Only 28% of all consumers said they’d welcome crypto in their stocking. The survey, fielded in October by Morning Consult, reached 1,000 adults.

The terms of Bitcoin, the largest integer currency, has risen dramatically in caller years, a surge partly fueled by the advent of crypto ETFs and buoyed by enthusiastic support from President Donald Trump.

But Bitcoin’s price has plummeted lately. The diminution comes amid volatility successful the broader market, a script that drives investors distant from riskier assets, specified arsenic crypto, according to an investigation by Investopedia.

With Bitcoin trading astatine a discount, the 2025 vacation play could mark the cleanable clip to bargain immoderate for your Gen Z child. Or not. It truly depends connected however you consciousness astir crypto, experts say.

And that whitethorn beryllium connected your age.

Crypto is mostly a generational phenomenon. It’s besides a feline thing. Gallup polling in mid-2025 recovered this breakdown of crypto ownership by property and gender:

• Men 18-49: 25% own crypto

• Men 50+: 12%

• Women 18-49: 8%

• Women 50+: 9%

Among millennials, “everybody knows idiosyncratic who’s go a crypto millionaire,” said Craig J. Ferrantino, president of Craig James Financial Services successful Melville, New York, speaking to USA TODAY in 2024.

Gen Z, calved betwixt 1997 and 2012, are crypto natives. The oldest Gen Zers reached adulthood after the archetypal merchandise of Bitcoin in 2009.

Sam Taube, a pb investing writer astatine NerdWallet, is simply a younger millennial with peers "who person made a batch of wealth connected crypto." He thinks helium knows wherefore Gen Z is fond of the currency.

The COVID-19 ostentation situation is simply a defining economical lawsuit for Gen Z, Taube said. After witnessing astir 10% yearly inflation, galore successful Gen Z fearfulness that "the 10% per twelvemonth from the S&P 500 isn't needfully going to chopped it, successful inflation-adjusted terms," helium said. "People consciousness they request a bigger, bolder signifier of profitability to support up with the outgo of living." Crypto could output that profitability.

Gen Z's parents, by contrast, whitethorn not adjacent beryllium susceptible of defining crypto convincingly.

“I deliberation radical of our procreation are a spot much skeptical regarding crypto,” said Jason Moser, a elder concern expert astatine The Motley Fool who has college-age children.

“I deliberation the trouble a batch of radical person with crypto -- and I person the aforesaid trouble – it’s conscionable not tangible,” Moser said. “You don’t cognize what it is. It’s conscionable an algorithm. What happens erstwhile the lights spell out?”

Cryptocurrency is integer money. It isn’t issued by governments oregon banks, truthful there’s nary cardinal authority. It exists instead on decentralized networks and uses a exertion called blockchain, which tracks transactions and assets.

For years, mean investors who wanted to buy oregon sell digital currencies mostly had to visit a crypto exchange, a potential drawback for the uninitiated. That changed successful 2024, erstwhile national regulators voted that mean American investors could bargain and sell Bitcoin ETFs the aforesaid mode they commercialized stocks.

Moser is simply a crypto skeptic. He wrestles with the thought that Bitcoin has nary intrinsic value: It is lone worthy what idiosyncratic is consenting to pay.

“I tin archer you wherefore a banal terms translates to worth of that fixed company,” helium said. “With crypto, it truly does boil down to uncovering idiosyncratic to wage you much for that crypto than you paid for it.”

Others are much sanguine astir cryptocurrency.

“I deliberation that successful today’s modern portfolio, everyone needs a small vulnerability to cryptocurrency,” said Caleb Silver, exertion successful main of Investopedia. “And by ‘a little,’ I mean nary much than 5%” of that portfolio.

Bitcoin has risen successful worth from efficaciously zero to supra $126,000, an all-time high, successful October.

“If you look astatine the returns conscionable of Bitcoin implicit the past 10 years, it’s the best-performing ‘asset’ – aerial quotes -- successful history,” Silver said. “Will it ever be? It’s hard to know, but if you look astatine its terms history, it’s undeniably been a bully investment.”

If you similar the thought of introducing a young big to investing, but you’re not copacetic with crypto, here’s an evident alternative: Stocks.

A genitor tin easy acquisition idiosyncratic stocks oregon shares of exchange-traded oregon communal funds for a child. If the recipient is simply a minor, you tin acceptable up a custodial brokerage account successful their name.

“Open a custodial relationship with your kid and prime the stocks and exchange-traded funds together,” Silver said. “Make it a household affair. Do the probe unneurotic larn wherefore it’s important to invest.”

Moser suggests the gift-giver see purchasing shares successful a S&P 500 scale ETF, a money that invests crossed the full S&P index.

“That, I think, is simply a large archetypal measurement for radical learning astir investing and however to go investors,” helium said. “It makes that adjacent measurement of idiosyncratic banal ownership a small easier.”

This nonfiction primitively appeared connected USA TODAY: Gen Z wants crypto for Christmas. Will their Gen X parents deliver?