Updated Oct 29, 2026, 11:02 a.m. EDT Published Oct 29, 2026, 10:39 a.m. EDT
5 min read
Happy Thursday, advisors!
In today’s newsletter, Jennifer Rosenthal from the DeFi Education Fund presents fresh survey statistics indicating a clear opening for advisors as customers seek options beyond legacy finance.
Next, in “Ask an Expert,” DJ Windle of Windle Wealth breaks down why younger participants show greater receptiveness toward alternate financial architectures.
Enjoy your reading.
Fading trust in banks is an opening for financial advisors
While most citizens depend on massive financial organizations to protect their cash, under fifty percent hold deep confidence in these traditional establishments. In just a few days, citizens will cast ballots in the midterm elections, which will influence how upcoming financial innovations are developed and governed.
Within a brand-new national longitudinal analysis, our team at the DeFi Education Foundation polled citizens to understand their views regarding current financial institutions alongside their openness to emerging technologies. We employed Ipsos via KnowledgePanel, which is the identical premier standard approach utilized by the Federal Reserve for its Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making. The figures illustrate how wide the chasm has become between the monetary infrastructure and the population it supports.
Several pertinent discoveries for financial advisors:
- Trust is a problem. Only roughly 1 out of every 5 citizens (19%) indicate that the present United States financial apparatus is safe. Close to 2 out of 3 (63%) mention it requires modernization to tackle modern risks such as artificial intelligence and cyber threats. Merely 1 out of 10 individuals (10%) place absolute faith in major national banks. Credit unions, which represented the highest-trusted entity within the poll, dropped by 5 percentage points over twelve months, resting at 48% reporting substantial or total trust. Just about 3 out of 10 people (31%) strongly agree the financial structure operates effectively for individuals like them, and only about 1 out of 7 respondents (14%) think that banks and alternative financial firms bill fair prices for their offerings. This eroding confidence implies that domestic investors will grow increasingly receptive to investigating alternate options.
- Americans want to feel like they have greater control over their money and assets. Two out of three citizens (66%) demand access to their funds continually, and 8 out of 10 respondents (80%) feel that modifications are necessary to grant individuals higher command over personal information. Three out of four (74%) currently report that financial privacy matters to them. For consultants, this serves as an argument pointing toward radical transparency. Professionals possess a chance to assist clients in better comprehending why and how their holdings are split, while establishing choices that empower consumers to gain enhanced oversight and visibility regarding how their portfolios actually function.
- Americans are interested in experimenting with financial alternatives. Beyond 1 out of 5 residents (22%) have now held or utilized cryptocurrency, climbing from 18% in 2025. Less than 1 out of 10 (9%) state they possess deep or extreme familiarity with it, though the primary motivation for trying it involved curiosity. Two out of five individuals (40%) declare they would feel at least moderately inclined to test decentralized finance (DeFi) if accessible to them. Among those prone to testing DeFi, greater than 8 out of 10 would apply it to build savings (85%, rising from 77% in 2025), transfer funds to acquaintances or relatives domestically (82%, rising from 73%), or generate yields (82%). Consumers are likewise signaling curiosity regarding exploring concepts like perpetual futures, tokenized properties, and stablecoins, meaning advisors ought to educate themselves regarding these financial breakthroughs.
- Younger Americans are more likely to be less happy with the financial system. Merely 42% of Gen Z members feel extremely or very content regarding the existing monetary infrastructure, contrasted against 63% of baby boomers. Furthermore, when queried about receptiveness toward financial advancements, Gen Z participants stand over four times more likely than boomers to express curiosity regarding studying DeFi (13% versus 3%). This demographic represents the upcoming clientele for numerous monetary experts, and they demonstrate higher tendencies to embrace financial alternatives.
Today’s customers access a wider array of financial instruments than any prior generation, generating a genuine window of opportunity for wealth managers. The study points out that enthusiasm surrounding novel financial mechanisms vastly outpaces familiarity regarding those exact tools. Advisors who stay abreast of these shifts, articulate modern financial inventions simply, and steer clients across upcoming waves of technological evolution in finance will position themselves strongly to capture the upcoming decade of clients.
You can explore the full report and topline data at research.defieducationfund.org.
— Jennifer Rosenthal, chief communications officer, DeFi Education Fund
Ask an Expert
Q. Why might younger generations be more open to alternative financial systems?
- Younger investors matured inside an environment where virtually everything turned digital and available instantly. Banking and investing are increasingly observed through that exact perspective. Crypto and DeFi push that concept further by enabling individuals to engage with financial instruments in ways independent of legacy institutions relied upon by their parents.
Q. What does it actually mean to have more control over your money?
- Control can signify various distinct things: having the ability to access holdings whenever desired, gaining heightened transparency regarding their storage location, regulating who reviews your financial data, or even maintaining wealth without depending entirely on intermediaries. Digital assets broaden that definition because, occasionally, participants can independently manage and transfer tokens directly. Such autonomy simultaneously introduces extra responsibilities and exposure to risk.
Q. Why would someone use DeFi instead of a bank?
- DeFi leverages distributed ledger technology and software applications to deliver financial operations without depending on a legacy financial intermediary. Users can potentially borrow, lend, trade properties, or secure yields directly via decentralized protocols. That does not necessarily render DeFi superior or safer than a traditional bank, but it illuminates the core appeal: It supplies an entirely different mechanism to reach financial services.
— DJ Windle, the captain, Windle Wealth
Keep Reading
- Stablecoins processed approximately $35 trillion onchain throughout 2025, outpacing Visa and Mastercard combined, though only close to $390 billion accounted for authentic transactions.
- Canada initiated a public consultation concerning proposed stablecoin guidelines that preserve a prohibition on yields while mandating nonbank issuers to back digital tokens 1:1 using reserves maintained at approved Canadian institutions alongside settling redemptions within three operational days.
- Google plans to display a fresh security framework engineered to assist banks and additional monetary organizations in securing and transferring digital currencies alongside tokenized properties.
Seeking additional insights? Acquire the latest crypto reporting from coindesk.com alongside market bulletins via coindesk.com/institutions.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/coindesk-indices/2026/10/29/crypto-for-advisors-only-1-in-5-americans-say-the-financial-system-is-secure.
