Key Takeaways:
- US crypto app engagement falls to lowest levels since Trump’s second inauguration
- Coinbase now commands almost 80% of US crypto app opens but its Power Users are churning at 2x the pre-election rate
- Retail investing also declined but has held up far better: time spent is down 20.2% YoY while crypto is down 40.3%.
US crypto app engagement data shows the past quarter was the weakest since the start of Trump’s second term in office. For this analysis, we reviewed the top 10 crypto apps from January 2024 through March 2026. In Q1 2026, app opens (also known as sessions) for this market fell 43.4% YoY while downloads fell a further 56.9%. The Q1 2025 comp was juiced by the post-inauguration rally, but the bigger point is that Q1 2026 demand sits below where the category started in 2024.
US crypto downloads peaked at roughly 9.7 million in Q4 2024 as the post-election trade vibes ran hot, held above 9 million in Q1 2025, then stepped down to 5.0M, 6.1M, and 5.5M before falling to 4.1M in Q1 2026. Q1 is historically strong for fintech apps thanks to tax-refund deposits and fresh-money inflows, and crypto still printed its weakest Q1 in three years. The slide began before October’s liquidation event erased roughly 22% of Bitcoin’s value, which makes the reset structural rather than a price-shock echo.
Within that shrinking market, activity is consolidating into Coinbase [NASDAQ: COIN]. Its share of US crypto app opens climbed to 79.6% from 64.2% in Q1 2024. Share of downloads sits at 38.1%, well above the 25.3% it held two years ago. Wallet and altcoin-heavy long-tail apps lost users faster than Coinbase when prices broke; the incumbent benefited from a flight-to-trust effect while still shedding users in absolute terms.
Even with its impressive market share, there are red flags. The most notable comes from its Power Users. This cohort represents the top 10% of users by time spent. Power User churn for Coinbase is up 89%, YoY. Average sessions per DAU among Power Users fell to 15.1 from 17.9 a year ago and 23.4 two years ago. All-user churn climbed to 43.1% from 29.2% in Q1 2024, and the divergence is the real signal: Coinbase’s most loyal cohort is now churning at roughly the rate casual users churned two years ago. Power User behavior tracks closest to transaction revenue, so that is the curve to watch into May.
“The post-election crypto bump is fully unwound in the engagement data, and what’s left is a smaller, more concentrated market where Coinbase looks dominant on paper but is bleeding its highest-value cohort,” said Tom Grant, VP of Research at Apptopia. “We’ll look to track if power users come back when price action recovers, or see if many have permanently migrated their interests elsewhere.”
The macro framing matters for modeling recovery. TRM Labs reported global retail crypto activity fell 11% YoY in Q1, attributing the slowdown to tariff uncertainty, a strong dollar, and elevated real yields rather than anything crypto-native. If the read is macro, recovery tracks risk-on conditions and any Fed cuts. If it is structural, with power users disengaging because the everything-exchange thesis has not yet shown up in the product, recovery is slower and Coinbase’s share lead does less work.
Retail Investing Apps Also Declined, but to a Lesser Extent
How linked is retail trading to crypto trading? Anchored to 1Q23, crypto time spent is down 45.6% and retail investing is down 31.2%. Retail’s YoY decline in Q1 2026 was 20.2% versus 40.3% for crypto. Robinhood [NASDAQ: HOOD] has been the obvious beneficiary: its share of US retail trading downloads is 61.2%, up from 56.1% two years ago, and its share of app opens has held above 84% for five straight quarters.
The engagement gap is wider than the share number suggests. Robinhood Power Users averaged 33.2 sessions per DAU in Q1 2026, more than double Coinbase’s 15.1, and Robinhood Power User churn (~13%) sits where Coinbase’s was before the post-election cycle. That spread reflects Robinhood’s broader product surface (equities, options, prediction markets, IRA, Gold) generating habitual daily use that single-asset crypto apps cannot match in a sideways tape.
Other finance apps, such as P2P payment apps and buy-now-pay-later apps are growing engagement. Consumer time spent is a great way to track behavioral changes over time.
