Women Are Crypto’s Fastest-Growing Force — And They’re Playing a Long Game

• Women’s share of active crypto users rose from 17% to 21%, with female activity growing faster than male activity across every age group.
• Female spot trading activity tripled in 2025, elevating women’s share of total spot volume from 3% to 5%.
• Bitcoin leads female crypto activity, with increased focus on a long-term, hold-first mindset that also makes women less reactive to market volatility.

For years, crypto adoption has been measured primarily through the lens of overall user growth — new wallets, rising volumes, expanding markets. But underneath those headline numbers, the composition of who is participating has been quietly shifting. New data from CEX.IO, drawn from a sample of over 3 million users across 150+ countries, reveals that female participation in crypto is not only growing but accelerating at a pace that outstrips the broader market.

Notably, women are more actively moving from passive holding into active trading, but a long-term orientation and holding through volatility rather than reacting to it remains the most popular approach.

What follows is a close look at where that growth is coming from, what female users are actually doing with their portfolios, and what their behavior might signal about the evolving character of crypto participation overall.

1 in 5 Active Crypto Users is Now Female 

In 2024, roughly one in six users (17%) who made a financial operation on the crypto exchange was female. Today, that number is closer to one in five (21%). 

What makes this number more striking is the pace behind it. Female user activity grew more than twice as fast as male activity over the same period — over 70% growth year-on-year for women, compared to 33% for men. Notably, women outpaced men consistently across every age group.

The 35–50 age group stands out as the most active. Women in this bracket account for the largest share of female crypto operations and represent the core of female crypto engagement. 

But the fastest-moving group is the youngest: women aged 18–25 more than doubled their activity year-on-year. Some of that acceleration reflects a lower starting point, but still, young women are entering crypto at a rapidly increasing rate, and they’re arriving faster than their male peers.

Women Doubled Their Financial Footprint in Crypto, With Trading Fueling the Trend

Female-driven financial volume on the crypto exchange grew by more than 118% in 2025, outpacing men’s volume with a 99% growth rate over the same period.

Spot trading played a significant role in this surge. The share of female spot traders grew from around 12% to nearly 13% in 2025. That may sound modest, but the volume story is more impactful. Female spot trading volume more than tripled year-on-year. As a result, women’s share of total spot trading volume jumped from around 3% to over 5%.

Notably, among male spot traders, activity is increasingly concentrated in the 25-35 age group, suggesting younger men are leading trading behavior. But among female traders, the 35–50 group remains dominant, both in activity and in volume.

Meanwhile, the overall share of spot trading within female crypto activity has also grown — rising from roughly 22% to 31% of female volume. This indicates that women are increasingly engaging with trading tools as a bigger part of their crypto journey.

Women in Crypto Are BTC First and Stick More to Their Original Plan

Among female users, Bitcoin is the single most interacted-with digital asset by volume, accounting for 37% of female financial activity. The female top-five asset ranking runs: BTC, USDT, ETH, USDC, XRP — with Bitcoin clearly in front. Among male users, the order is slightly different: USDT, USDC, BTC, ETH, XRP — with stablecoins accounting for nearly half of financial activity. This gap points to a more buy-and-hold orientation among female users, while male activity leans more toward active rotation between assets.

That long-term mindset also shows up in how female users respond — or rather, don’t respond — to market turbulence. When high-impact events hit the market and total spot volumes surge, female users show notably smaller spikes in both activity and volume. This doesn’t mean they’re passive, but rather less reactive to noise and act as a stabilizing force in the market.

Despite a clear preference for Bitcoin, women are actively exploring beyond it. Among top altcoins, assets that saw the biggest increase in female interest in 2025 include AAVE, SUI, XRP, SOL, and ETH.

Conclusion

Female crypto adoption over the past year was broad, spanning every age group, outpacing male growth in both activity and volume, and deepening in engagement as more women moved from passive holding into active trading.

This trend isn’t exclusive to crypto, and a similar shift is underway across traditional finance. Fidelity’s research found that 7 in 10 women own stock market investments, up 18% compared to the prior year. Charles Schwab’s 2025 survey found millennial women are starting to invest earlier than previous generations, supporting the trend of younger women getting more involved in crypto.

The behavioral patterns are also similar. Bitcoin-first thinking and lower reactivity to market volatility mirror what researchers have documented in traditional markets for decades: women trade less, hold longer, and tend to outperform as a result.What makes crypto distinctive is the pace. A four-percentage point jump in female share of active crypto users within a single year is a steeper trajectory than traditional finance has typically recorded. As female participation continues to grow, it may bring a measurably different energy to a crypto space that has sometimes been defined by its excesses.

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