How Many Americans Have Lost Access To Cryptocurrency Wallets?

Millions of Americans have lost access to their crypto wallet or account permanently, according to a new study from Oobit, a crypto payments platform.

The numbers are staggering, 35% of U.S. crypto holders say that they have lost access to their wallet or account.

About 31% have never recovered their crypto, resulting in permanent loss, and those losses are not small: 12% of those locked out of their account lost $5,000 or more in a single incident. The median user lost on average 30% of their total crypto holdings.

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How could this happen?

From something as simple as forgetting their password and login, which is 31% of those who lost their account, to lost phrase or recovery phrase to platform shutdown and/or went bankrupt, to lost or damaged phones or computers and having the exchange account locked or frozen.

Losing a crypto account added stress to 49% of its users, with 1 out of 5 spending more money trying to recover access many times without success.

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How did crypto coins fare for loss?

Of the 35% of crypto holders who experienced permanent loss, 63% were Bitcoin. 50% was Ethereum, USD Coin was 30%, and Dogecoin and Solana were 26% and 24%, respectively.

What did investors do with losing crypto access?

About 40% improved their backup and security with backup codes, password managers, and seed phrase storage.

Amazingly, 29% moved crypto to a different wallet type. I would think that after losing your account you would refrain from the exchange, although 26% reduced the total amount of crypto that they held.

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Only 10% stopped using crypto entirely after losing an account.

I have those who I know say that crypto is a better platform than playing the stock market. You can lose at both platforms.

I am old-fashioned when it comes to my financial security. I work hard for the money I make I want my money in a very safe place.

Good luck to you with your crypto.

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