Young Americans kept out of the housing market by years of rising home prices and historically high borrowing costs are increasingly looking at cryptocurrencies as an alternative to real estate to build wealth.
Often, they are forced to make a choice between the two—the promise of riches held by the rather volatile crypto market, or years of sacrifices to be able to step onto the ever-further-from-reach property ladder.
On Reddit, one of the most popular social media platforms among U.S. adults under 30 according to the Pew Research Center, several young users have asked for advice in the past year on whether to use their savings to buy their first home or instead invest in cryptocurrencies, seemingly stuck in what they describe as a “dilemma."
That is a question that their parents—baby boomers or Gen Xers—never asked themselves, and which they would have likely struggled to even imagine. But young Americans are living in a completely different world compared to previous generations in many ways, especially financially.
“Zoomers and millennials definitely see Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as safe-haven investments they can actually afford right now,” Yaël Ossowski, deputy director at Consumer Choice Center, a millennial consumer advocacy group, and fellow at Bitcoin Policy Institute, told Newsweek.
“Home prices are up some 130 percent over the last 30 years. For anyone under 40 without family money, a down payment in a major metro is just out of reach,” Ossowski said.
“Bitcoin is one of the few assets young people can actually buy in $20 increments, hold themselves without a gatekeeper, and that cannot be debased by the Fed or Treasury. Most would rather save in harder money with at least a chance of it holding value over the long term,” he added.
Crypto v. Homeownership: What To Consider
Comparing an investment in cryptocurrencies and using one’s savings to buy a home is not easy. Most noticeably, investing in crypto won’t put a roof under your head—but both can be considered assets to build one’s wealth. And they each come with their own risks and benefits.
Real estate is by far the most stable investment between the two—and one that can be extremely rewarding in the long run.
Nationally, homeowners gained equity equal to about three years of income over the past decade, according to a recent report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR)—a wealth that is allowing them to stay afloat in the current sluggish market conditions, even in states where home values are falling, and build up their net worth.
Most of these gains have been made by the older generations—baby boomers and Gen Xers—which dominate the U.S. housing market as both homeowners and buyers, according to recent data.
Last year, baby boomers overtook millennials as the biggest force of homebuyers and sellers, and in 2026 they maintain the largest share of homebuyers in the country, at 42 percent against millennials’ 26 percent and Gen Zers’ 4 percent, according to NAR’s recently released 2026 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends report.
This means that younger generations have not only missed out on the gains made over the past decade of rising home values, but continue to lose on future gains by not being able to step onto the property ladder today. A recent study by Realtor.com found that those who buy a home at age 30 have 22.5 percent greater net worth at age 50 compared to those who buy in their mid-to-late 40s.
Americans, however, are getting to homeownership later in life than ever. The median age of first-time homebuyers has climbed from 30 in 1990 to 40 in 2025, according to Realtor.com.
However, homeownership, even when finally obtained, is not the finish line many dream of—especially as housing costs have risen in recent years, and tens of thousands of owners in the country are currently struggling to keep up with these payments and are at risk of losing their homes.
With mortgage rates once again on the rise and the Iran war fuelling uncertainty over the U.S. economy, a total of 118,727 properties were hit with a foreclosure filing between January and March, up 6 percent from the previous quarter and 26 percent from a year earlier, according to ATTOM data.
That is the equivalent of one in every 1,211 housing units nationwide, with states in the Midwest and the South are bearing the brunt of this new wave of foreclosures.
“One issue with homeownership is the staggering lifelong costs most people do not consider: property taxes, maintenance, insurance, and transaction costs,” Ossowski said. “It also locks you to a city and a job market,” he added.
“Younger people want flexibility,” according to Ossowski—and this is something cryptocurrencies can offer. “Bitcoin is liquid, portable, and globally accessible, and financially it has outperformed almost every other asset category,” he said.
Data shows that younger Americans are increasingly investing in cryptocurrencies, despite warning against its volatility and risks. More than 70 million people in the U.S.—about 30 percent of American adults—own crypto, with roughly one in three holders age 30 to 44, according to the latest data by consumer research company Security.org.
For Ossowski—who is honest about his enthusiasm for Bitcoin and the biases that come with it—“a house gives you shelter and an asset base, but Bitcoin offers a savings vehicle nobody can inflate away,” he said.
It is far from a safe bet, however. After hitting a record high of $124,000 in October, Bitcoin—the undisputed king of the cryptocurrency market—has now fallen to about $66,000, a drop of roughly 47 percent.
The best option, Ossowski said, would be to use one’s crypto assets to achieve homeownership.
Fannie May And The Crypto-backed Mortgages
“The smart path for a lot of young Americans is to use Bitcoin as the down-payment vehicle that gets them into a home, not as a replacement for one,” Ossowski said. “That is exactly why recognizing Bitcoin as a qualifying asset for mortgages matters and some lenders are actively offering this,” he added.
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae recently said it will accepts crypto-backed mortgage products, allowing homebuyers to use Bitcoin (BTC) or USD Coin (USDC) as collateral for down payments without selling their digital assets. This move is widely expected to expand the pool of crypto holders using their assets to access homeowners.
Already last year, a study published by Redfin found that more than one in 10 (12.7 percent) young homebuyers—including Gen Zers and millennials—were already using cryptocurrency to help fund their down payment in May 2025.
“If I had to pick one as a pure investment, I would take Bitcoin over a single house in a single ZIP code. But ‘pure investment’ is not why most people buy a home, and it shouldn’t be,” Ossowski said.
“Young Americans are not choosing Bitcoin over a home; rather, they are choosing Bitcoin because homes are mostly out of reach, whether because of poor policies or persistent inflation.”