New survey results may surprise you.
Bankrate recently released the results of its 2025 Long-Term Investment survey, which probes investors on how, why, and where they invest their money.
The triennial survey, last done in 2022, offered some revealing statistics on investor behaviors, particularly related to cryptocurrency investing.
The survey found that 27% of investors view the stock market as the best place to invest money for 10 years or more, which is roughly in line with the 26% in 2022. Real estate was second at 24%, down from 29% in 2022.
“Coming off a couple years of strong returns, it isn’t surprising to see stocks and real estate as the top two most common selections for long-term investment,” Greg McBride, Bankrate chief financial analyst, said.
A surprising third was cash and cash investments, like CDs, money markets, savings accounts etc. Some 21% said cash was the best place to invest long term up from 17% in 2022. This could suggest that investors see stocks flattening out or correcting after this recent bull market, which led to the market being wildly overvalued.
Gold and precious metals were next at 9%, which was the same as 2022.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investments followed at 6%, also the same as 2022. Bonds were also 6%, down from 9% in 2022. Finally, 7% said “other,” up from 3% in 2022.
Investors are less comfortable with crypto now
One of the more surprising data points involved Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Considering the incredible bull market run that Bitcoin has been on in recent years, rising to more than $100,000 per Bitcoin, one might expect the percentage of investors who see crypto as a good long-term investment to rise. However, that was not the case as it stayed at 6%.
Further, more investors said they are uncomfortable investing in crypto and Bitcoin than they were three years ago. Overall, 78% said they were not comfortable with crypto in 2025, with 49% saying they are not at all comfortable and 28% saying they are not too comfortable with it. That is up from 75% in 2022.
Further, only 20% said they were very (5%) or somewhat (15%) comfortable with it, down from 21% in 2022. Millennial investors were the most comfortable with crypto investing at 30%, followed by Gen Z at 28%. Only 21% of Gen X and 6% of Baby Boomers said they were comfortable with crypto and Bitcoin.
Also, 27% of men are very or somewhat comfortable with crypto, compared to 13% of women.
Finally, on stocks, investors who did not select stocks as their preferred long-term investment cited too much volatility (34%) and intimidated by the stock market (21%) as the major reasons why.
