# 73 Crypto AI Search Statistics for 2026

> Asked which crypto product to use, ChatGPT cites companies’ own pages, often several rivals’ help articles at once; asked how crypto works, it cites regulators and the Ethereum and Bitcoin sites. September 2026 figures, and who in a crypto company owns each route.

By Vlad Shvets, Partner @ Qvery · Published 2026-09-22 · Updated 2026-11-09 · 10 min read
Canonical: https://qvery.ai/blog/crypto-ai-search-statistics/

A crypto company keeps two kinds of public page.

Product pages, fee schedules and the help center belong to product and support, and they change whenever a fee or a feature does. Explainers (what staking is, how a trade is taxed, what custody means) belong to whoever signs off compliance language, and they change when a rule does.

The two kinds of question draw on different websites. Buying answers come from crypto companies’ own pages, usually several rivals’ at once, and on ChatGPT often through help-center articles about fees and features. How-it-works answers come from governments, regulators, ethereum.org and bitcoin.org, with a few companies’ explainers beside them.

That makes two routes into the answers, and each fits a different owner in your company: support for the first, with product signing its own pages, and compliance for the second.

> 💡 **Highlights** 
> - **89.83%** of ChatGPT's crypto buying answers that named a page cited at least one crypto company's own site.
> - **73.26%** cited two or more companies' sites in the same answer.
> - **54.61%** cited a company's help-center article; Google AI Mode, Google's chat-style search answers, almost never did.
> - **48.03%** of ChatGPT's how-it-works answers that named a page cited a government or regulator site.

In a July 2026 survey of US crypto investors, **19%** named AI tools among the top influences on their investing decisions, ahead of financial news and financial advisors[^1]. OpenAI counted 1.2 billion weekly ChatGPT users in September[^2], and Google says AI Mode has passed a billion monthly users[^3].

We asked ChatGPT and Google AI Mode both kinds of crypto question on 21 and 22 September 2026, from the US, the UK, Canada and Australia, in questions that name no company, and kept every page the answers cited. Shares of answers below are of the answers that named at least one page, unless they say otherwise, and a citation shows which page an answer leaned on, not which company it recommended.

## Buying Answers Are Built From Crypto Companies’ Own Pages, Several at a Time

When people asked which product to use, **89.83%** of ChatGPT’s sourced answers cited at least one crypto company’s own site. Google AI Mode did it in 69.14%.

The more useful number is how many companies. **73.26%** of ChatGPT’s sourced buying answers cited two or more companies’ sites, and 47.65% cited three or more. On Google AI Mode the figures were 34.29% and 20.57%.

**ChatGPT’s Buying Answers Usually Cite Several Crypto Companies at Once** (% of sourced answers)

47.65% of ChatGPT’s sourced crypto buying answers cited three or more companies’ own sites and 10.17% cited none; on Google AI Mode the figures were 20.57% and 30.86%.

| Label | ChatGPT | Google AI Mode |
|---|---:|---:|
| None | 10.17% | 30.86% |
| One | 16.57% | 34.86% |
| Two | 25.61% | 13.71% |
| Three or more | 47.65% | 20.57% |

Share of sourced answers to crypto buying questions by how many crypto companies’ own sites each cited, ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, September 2026. Source: Qvery research: unbranded crypto questions on ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, US, UK, Canada, Australia, 21 and 22 September 2026

One ChatGPT answer to “top crypto exchanges” cited Coinbase’s help article on fees, Kraken’s fee schedule and Gemini’s fee page together, quoted Kraken Pro’s entry fees, and told the reader to compare the three on fees, coins, staking, withdrawals and what is available in their state.

So when your product page is cited, it is usually read in the same answer as your rivals’ pages, and the answer lines up what each one says.

![A crypto buying question answered from help articles and rivals’ pages, kept by support; a how-it-works question answered from regulators and the Ethereum and Bitcoin sites, kept by compliance](https://qvery.ai/blog/crypto-ai-search-statistics/illustration-two-routes.webp)

*The pages each kind of question drew on in September 2026, and who in a crypto company keeps them.*

The pattern held for every product but one. ChatGPT cited a company’s own site in **96.75%** of its sourced wallet answers and 91.09% of its staking and DeFi (decentralized finance) answers, and in nearly every answer about portfolio trackers, NFT (digital collectible) marketplaces and tax tools.

Exchanges were lower, at **68.64%**. Review, media and data sites appeared in 83.05% of those answers, against 50.36% for the other products; our look at [the crypto review sites ChatGPT and Google AI Mode cite](https://qvery.ai/blog/crypto-review-sites-chatgpt-cites/) covers that layer.

**Company sites ChatGPT cited most on crypto buying questions, September 2026**

| Asked about | Company sites cited most |
|---|---|
| Exchanges | Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini |
| Wallets | Ledger, Trezor, MetaMask |
| Staking and DeFi | Aave, Coinbase, Kraken |
| Portfolio trackers | CoinStats, Zerion, Delta |
| NFT marketplaces | OpenSea, Rarible, Magic Eden |
| Tax tools | Koinly, CoinLedger, CoinTracker |

Your own row is a reading list: the pages your buyers see next to yours, or instead of yours.

## ChatGPT Quotes Your Help Center, Google AI Mode Your Homepage

On ChatGPT, help-center articles were the largest single kind of company page cited on buying questions: 29.46% of its company-page citations, ahead of product pages at 28.46% and homepages at 18.13%. Counted by answer, **54.61%** of sourced buying answers cited at least one help article, against 31.64% that cited a homepage.

They are support articles, the kind written to answer a ticket before it arrives: OpenSea’s “What fees do I pay on OpenSea?”, Coinbase’s “Coinbase Advanced fees”, Kraken’s “How trading fees work on Kraken”, Koinly’s “Which countries does Koinly calculate taxes for?”.

**ChatGPT Cites Crypto Companies’ Help Centers; Google AI Mode Almost Never Does** (% of sourced answers)

A company’s help-center article appeared in 54.61% of ChatGPT’s sourced crypto buying answers and 1.14% of Google AI Mode’s, which cited homepages and blog posts instead.

| Label | ChatGPT | Google AI Mode |
|---|---:|---:|
| Help-center articles | 54.61% | 1.14% |
| Product pages | 60.83% | 29.71% |
| Homepages | 31.64% | 27.43% |
| Learn or academy pages | 29.19% | 9.14% |
| Blog posts | 19.21% | 33.14% |

Share of sourced answers to crypto buying questions that cited at least one company page of each kind, ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, September 2026. Source: Qvery research: unbranded crypto questions on ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, US, UK, Canada, Australia, 21 and 22 September 2026

A company page about fees, a help article or a fee schedule, appeared in **19.96%** of ChatGPT's buying answers that named a page. When an answer quotes a fee, those are the pages it has in front of it.

OpenAI describes its August update as making fewer mistakes on “dates, numbers, sources, rules” by “better using the sources it finds”[^4]. Better use of a stale fee page still hands the buyer a stale fee.

Google AI Mode almost never cited a help article.

When it cited a company, half of those citations went to a homepage (50.94%), and blog posts and product pages made up most of the rest.

Next to the companies, Google AI Mode cited other people’s pages. Reddit appeared in **33.71%** of its sourced buying answers, Investopedia and NerdWallet in 22.29% each and YouTube in 12.00%.

On ChatGPT, communities of any kind appeared in 2.07%.

**Google AI Mode Puts Reddit and Review Sites Around the Crypto Companies** (% of sourced answers)

On crypto buying questions communities appeared in 40.57% of Google AI Mode’s sourced answers and 2.07% of ChatGPT’s, while companies’ own sites appeared in 69.14% and 89.83%.

| Label | ChatGPT | Google AI Mode |
|---|---:|---:|
| Crypto companies’ own sites | 89.83% | 69.14% |
| Review, media and data sites | 57.63% | 80.00% |
| Communities (Reddit, YouTube and others) | 2.07% | 40.57% |
| Government and regulator sites | 9.79% | 0.00% |

Share of sourced answers to crypto buying questions citing at least one site of each kind, ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, September 2026. Source: Qvery research: unbranded crypto questions on ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, US, UK, Canada, Australia, 21 and 22 September 2026

Both engines cited about four websites per sourced buying answer (3.97 on ChatGPT, 3.96 on Google AI Mode), so the split is in which pages they pick; why each engine prefers its pages, we didn’t measure.

On ChatGPT your help center is part of how buyers choose you, as [fintech companies’ help centers and fee pages are for theirs](https://qvery.ai/blog/google-ai-mode-cites-fintech-websites/), and a fee change is two jobs: the schedule and the help article that explains it.

On Google AI Mode the work is your homepage and what threads and review pages say about you.

## How-It-Works Answers Lean on Regulators and the Ethereum and Bitcoin Sites

On ChatGPT, **48.03%** of sourced how-it-works answers cited a government or regulator site, and 35.81% cited ethereum.org or bitcoin.org. 79.04% cited at least one of the two. Crypto companies’ own sites appeared in 40.61% of these answers, against 89.83% on buying questions.

**Ask How Crypto Works and ChatGPT Turns From Companies to Regulators** (% of sourced answers)

Government and regulator sites appeared in 48.03% of ChatGPT’s sourced how-it-works answers and 9.79% of its buying answers; companies’ own sites fell from 89.83% to 40.61%.

| Label | Buying questions | How-it-works questions |
|---|---:|---:|
| Crypto companies’ own sites | 89.83% | 40.61% |
| Government and regulator sites | 9.79% | 48.03% |
| ethereum.org or bitcoin.org | 6.40% | 35.81% |
| Review, media and data sites | 57.63% | 17.03% |
| Communities | 2.07% | 2.18% |

Share of ChatGPT’s sourced answers citing at least one site of each kind, buying questions against how-it-works questions, September 2026. Source: Qvery research: unbranded crypto questions on ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, US, UK, Canada, Australia, 21 and 22 September 2026

Google AI Mode gave too few sourced how-it-works answers to split, so this section’s figures are ChatGPT’s.

ethereum.org appeared in **31.88%** of sourced how-it-works answers, Coinbase in 11.79%, investor.gov in 11.35%, bitcoin.org in 10.92%, the IRS in 10.48%, the SEC in 8.73% and the FTC in 7.42%, with the CFTC and Ledger at 6.11% each.

**On How-It-Works Questions, ChatGPT’s Most-Cited Sites Are Mostly Regulators** (% of sourced answers)

ethereum.org appeared in 31.88% of ChatGPT’s sourced how-it-works answers, followed by Coinbase, investor.gov, bitcoin.org, the IRS, the SEC, the FTC, the CFTC and Ledger.

| Label | Value |
|---|---:|
| ethereum.org | 31.88% |
| coinbase.com | 11.79% |
| investor.gov | 11.35% |
| bitcoin.org | 10.92% |
| irs.gov | 10.48% |
| sec.gov | 8.73% |
| ftc.gov | 7.42% |
| cftc.gov | 6.11% |
| ledger.com | 6.11% |

Share of ChatGPT’s sourced answers to crypto how-it-works questions that cited each site, September 2026. Source: Qvery research: unbranded crypto questions on ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, US, UK, Canada, Australia, 21 and 22 September 2026

The IRS page the tax answers cite also explains Form 1099-DA, on which brokers report customers’ digital asset sales to the IRS, starting with 2025 transactions reported in 2026[^5]. If you are a broker, your customers’ questions about the form you send them are answered from the IRS’s page. In September the ChatGPT answers we collected to the US tax questions, a small set, all cited the IRS, and none cited a company.

Ask whether an exchange is regulated and the answer hands the customer the regulator’s own lookup. ChatGPT cited the CFTC’s “Check Registration & Backgrounds Before You Trade”, FinCEN’s MSB Registrant Search and the FCA’s “How to check a firm or individual is authorised”. Your registration record is a page in that answer, kept by someone in compliance, and it has to say what your site says.

Google AI Mode’s answer to the same question cited ESMA and AUSTRAC beside the US and UK regulators, and Paybis’s and Banxa’s own posts on how to check a platform’s license, the same ground the regulators’ pages cover.

Companies that did appear here mostly got in through learn and help articles: 47.13% of the company-page citations on how-it-works questions went to learn pages and 34.74% to help articles. Among them were Coinbase’s “What is a crypto wallet?”, Uniswap’s docs on liquidity pools, Aave’s help pages, MetaMask’s guide to the secret recovery phrase, and Ledger’s and Trezor’s academy pages.

In the July survey, **28%** of US crypto investors believed crypto investments are insured by the FDIC, and 34% picked the right definition of cryptocurrency[^1].

An explainer that sits beside the SEC in an answer is read against it, so it needs compliance’s sign-off as much as any disclosure does.

> 📌 At Qvery, we help crypto companies stop paying staff to check by hand what AI answers say about their fees and licenses, with custom AI agents that read each month's answers against the facts compliance has signed and draft the fixes for each page's owner to approve. The agents publish and send nothing; support, product and compliance approve their own pages.

## The Two Lists of Pages Barely Overlap

The seven sites that cover 80% of ChatGPT’s sourced buying answers (Coin Bureau, Coinbase, Ledger, CoinStats, OpenSea, Aave and Koinly) reach 19.65% of its how-it-works answers. The nine that cover 80% of how-it-works answers reach 43.13% of buying answers.

Coinbase and Ledger were cited on both kinds of question, Coinbase mostly through its help center and Ledger through its academy pages. Take them out and the lists reach 3.06% and 12.81% of each other’s answers.

So a team that checks the pages its product questions cite has seen about a fifth of what its customers’ how-it-works questions cite, and a compliance team reading the regulators’ pages has seen little of the buying route. Your own questions will give different figures.

Which pages your own questions draw, and when that changes, shows up when the same questions are asked every day.

GEO Agent: https://qvery.ai/geo-agent/

So support keeps the help articles and fee pages the buying answers read, product signs its own pages, and compliance signs the explainers that sit beside the regulators.

Have Qvery Build the Agents That Keep Your Help Center and Licenses Right: https://calendly.com/qvery-vlad/30min

## Frequently asked questions



### Which websites do ChatGPT and Google AI Mode cite when people ask about crypto?

It depends on the question. In our September 2026 research, ChatGPT’s sourced answers to buying questions cited at least one crypto company’s own site in 89.83% of cases, often help-center articles, and Google AI Mode’s in 69.14%, alongside Reddit, Investopedia and NerdWallet. Asked how crypto works, ChatGPT cited a government or regulator site in 48.03% of sourced answers and ethereum.org or bitcoin.org in 35.81%.

### Does a citation mean the assistant recommends our company?

No. A citation shows which page an answer leaned on, and an answer that cites your fee page can recommend a rival. In our research, 73.26% of ChatGPT’s sourced buying answers cited two or more companies’ sites at once.

### Why does ChatGPT cite help-center articles instead of our homepage?

The answers don’t say why. What we measured is the pattern: help articles were the largest single kind of company page ChatGPT cited on crypto buying questions (29.46% of its company-page citations), while Google AI Mode cited help articles in 1.14% of its sourced buying answers and mostly cited homepages.

### Should a crypto company write explainers if the answers cite regulators anyway?

Companies’ explainers do get cited beside the regulators: 40.61% of ChatGPT’s sourced how-it-works answers cited a company’s own site, mostly learn and help articles from companies such as Coinbase, Uniswap, Ledger and MetaMask, in the same answers as investor.gov and the SEC. Write them for the questions your customers ask, and have compliance sign them.

### Do ChatGPT and Google AI Mode cite the same crypto sources?

Not on buying questions. ChatGPT leaned on companies’ help and product pages and cited communities in 2.07% of sourced answers; Google AI Mode cited Reddit in 33.71% and help articles in 1.14%. Check both engines, because each reads a different set of your pages.

### How many crypto investors use AI to research?

In Forbes Advisor’s July 2026 survey of US crypto investors, 19% named AI tools among the top influences on their investing decisions and 21% said they had used tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude to research cryptocurrency investments[^1].

### How often should we check what AI answers say about our fees and products?

Monthly, and again the week after any fee or product change, so a changed fee is checked on the pages the answers cite. Check your buying questions and your how-it-works questions as two separate lists; in our research each list reached only a fraction of the other’s answers.

### Who in a crypto company should own this?

One owner per route. Support owns the buying route, where the help center and fee pages get cited, and product signs its own pages; compliance owns the how-it-works route, where your explainers and registration records sit beside the regulators’ pages.

### Which crypto companies’ sites does ChatGPT cite most?

On buying questions in September 2026, ChatGPT cited Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini most for exchanges; Ledger, Trezor and MetaMask for wallets; Aave, Coinbase and Kraken for staking and DeFi; CoinStats, Zerion and Delta for trackers; OpenSea, Rarible and Magic Eden for NFT marketplaces; and Koinly, CoinLedger and CoinTracker for tax tools.

### Where does an AI answer get the fee it quotes?

From whichever page it read. A company page about fees, a help article or a fee schedule, appeared in 19.96% of ChatGPT’s sourced buying answers. When your fee schedule and help article disagree, the answer can quote either, so update the schedule and the help article together.

### Which regulator pages do AI answers send crypto customers to?

Asked whether an exchange is regulated, ChatGPT cited the CFTC’s registration check, FinCEN’s MSB Registrant Search and the FCA’s register; Google AI Mode added ESMA and AUSTRAC. Have compliance search your company on the registers that apply and compare the result with the licenses your site lists.

### Where do AI answers about how crypto is taxed come from?

From the tax authority, in our small September set of US tax questions: every ChatGPT answer we collected to them cited the IRS, and not one cited a company. That IRS page also explains Form 1099-DA, on which brokers report customers’ digital asset sales, starting with 2025 transactions reported in 2026[^5].

## Sources

[^1]: Forbes Advisor, "The Crypto Confidence Gap: Study Reveals Most Investors Feel Knowledgeable, But Many Don’t Understand The Basics" (2026), https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/cryptocurrency/cyrptocurrency-investment-confidence-study/
[^2]: OpenAI, "DevDay 2026 Recap" (2026), https://openai.com/index/devday-2026-recap/
[^3]: Google, "New Opportunities, Control and Insights for Website Owners" (2026), https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/new-controls-website-owners/
[^4]: OpenAI, "Improving GPT-5.6 Sol in ChatGPT" (2026), https://openai.com/index/improving-gpt-5-6-sol-in-chatgpt/
[^5]: IRS, "Digital Assets" (2026), https://www.irs.gov/filing/digital-assets