- Young people turn to crypto as a Hail Mary bet to own a house.
- People born in the 1990s are less likely to own a home than their parents.
- Renters with a net worth below $300,000 are more likely to invest in crypto.
Young Americans gamble on crypto because they can’t afford a home, according to a study published on November 19.
The study argues that a jump in the median US house price-to-income ratio between 1984 and 2022 means it takes nearly two more years to afford the same home, forcing young people to find alternative methods of funding their homeownership dreams.
“When the probability of ever buying a home collapses, households shift toward high-variance assets with transformative upside — crypto perfectly fits that profile,” researchers Seung Hyeong Lee and Younggeun Yoo argue in the report.
They “are giving up on homeownership altogether,” the researchers wrote.
It’s well-known that young people are more prone to invest in digital assets than their parents. Usually, that’s explained by them having an inherent belief in crypto or a better understanding of digital assets than their parents.
The report, however, paints a darker picture where those who bet on digital assets don’t do it because of a belief in the fundamental necessity of overturning the traditional financial system, but out of desperation.
And while the study focused on American youth, it found a similar trend across the globe.
‘Discouraged renters’
The study identified one key psychological breaking point.
Once renters conclude that homeownership is impossible, their behaviour changes immediately and permanently.
For instance, discouraged renters consume roughly 10% more on credit cards than homeowners with the same net worth. They’re also nearly twice as likely to say “working hard is not important” — evidence of what the researchers, and many in today’s job market call “quiet quitting.”
Renters with a net worth below $300,000 show significantly higher crypto participation than comparable homeowners. The pattern is most pronounced among those with $50,000 to $300,000 in assets — too rich for a safety-net mindset, too poor to afford a home.
Once renters fall below a net worth of $50,000, they stop investing entirely — not because they don’t want to, but because they lack liquidity to gamble.
Gambling for redemption
Lee and Yoo explicitly frame crypto participation as a “last resort” strategy, a high-risk attempt to close an affordability gap that traditional saving cannot bridge.
“Crypto becomes a substitute for the American Dream,” the researchers wrote. “Once housing becomes unattainable, young people shift from a ‘save and buy a home’ mindset to a ‘place a big bet and hope to leapfrog the system’ mentality.”
The logic is understandable, albeit depressing. Because the downside is cushioned by minimum-consumption welfare programmes, discouraged renters can take moonshot bets like crypto, knowing the worst-case scenario is limited, wrote the researchers,
Some of the consequences compound over time, however.
Two renters starting with similar assets diverge sharply as time elapses. Discouraged renters fall into a near-zero wealth trap, while hopeful renters continue compounding wealth.
The cohort born in the 1990s will retire with a homeownership rate 9.6 percentage points lower than their parents, the study projects.
International problem
But it’s not just young Americans that are feeling the effects of poor personal finances.
In South Korea, many call themselves the “Sampo generation,” meaning they have given up on three things: dating, marriage, and childbirth. All due to high housing costs.
Similarly, Japan’s youth embrace “Satori,” which means enlightened or detached from material ambition, having concluded that homes and careers are unattainable.
Unsurprisingly, both countries have a booming crypto scene. South Korea lands in 15th place in Chainalysis’ 2025 Crypto Adoption Index while Japan ranks 19.
Pedro Solimano is DL News’ Buenos Aires-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him atpsolimano@dlnews.com.