A new NBC News poll has put hard numbers on a tension that crypto and tech markets have been pricing around for months: Americans are using artificial intelligence at record rates while simultaneously distrusting the technology more than almost any major political figure or institution in the country.
The survey, conducted February 27 through March 3 among 1,000 registered voters in partnership with Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies, found that 56% of respondents used an AI platform — ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or Google Gemini — within the prior two to three months. That figure is up from 48% in December 2024 and 53% as of August 2025, indicating consistent adoption growth over a roughly 15-month window.
The sentiment data, however, tells a different story. Only 26% of registered voters view AI positively, against 46% who view it negatively — a net favorability score of -20. That places AI below ICE at -18, Kamala Harris at -17, President Trump at -12, and the Republican Party at -14. Only the Democratic Party (-22) and Iran (-53) ranked lower in the same poll.
How Does Negative AI Sentiment Affect Crypto Perpetual Markets?
For derivatives traders, the relevance here is structural rather than immediate. AI-linked narratives have been a primary driver of speculative rotation into certain altcoin sectors — particularly tokens tied to decentralized compute, AI agents, and on-chain inference protocols. When broader public sentiment toward AI deteriorates or stalls, it historically compresses the premium retail traders are willing to pay on AI-adjacent token perps, which in turn suppresses funding rates and reduces open interest in that sub-sector.
As of early March 2026, AI-sector tokens have seen open interest and funding rate compression relative to Q4 2024 peaks, consistent with the broader sentiment cycle the NBC data is capturing. Tokens in the decentralized AI compute space that were carrying annualized funding rates above 30% during the late 2024 narrative peak have since normalized toward single digits, reflecting reduced speculative long positioning.
The macro read matters for BTC and ETH as well. The poll's finding that 57% of Americans believe AI risks outweigh its benefits — up from prior Pew Research data showing 50% concerned versus excited as of last September — creates a headwind for the broader tech-risk-on narrative that has historically correlated with BTC upside. A December 2025 YouGov survey reinforced this: 35% of Americans use AI weekly, yet only 5% say they deeply trust it.
Regulatory risk is the more direct market variable. The poll shows a sharp partisan split on AI governance: Democrats are more inclined to trust EU-level regulation over domestic oversight, while 33% of all respondents say both parties handle AI policy poorly. With President Trump pushing for tighter AI hardware controls and the White House simultaneously advancing large-scale infrastructure projects like Stargate, policy uncertainty remains elevated. Regulatory ambiguity around AI has historically introduced volatility into correlated crypto sectors, particularly when enforcement actions or executive orders land without prior market pricing.
A Quinnipiac University survey from April 2025 found that just 4% of Americans trust AI-generated information almost all the time, and nearly three-quarters want government intervention to prevent AI-driven job displacement. That level of public pressure on lawmakers increases the probability of near-term regulatory action — a scenario that derivatives markets in the AI-crypto overlap space are not fully pricing.
Usage Growth Without Trust: What It Means for Positioning
The divergence between adoption (+8 percentage points since December 2024) and favorability (net -20) is the most tradeable signal in this data set. It suggests AI utility is being extracted at scale even as the narrative premium erodes. For crypto markets, that dynamic typically signals a transition from speculative momentum to fundamental-use-case repricing — a phase that tends to be volatile, with sharper drawdowns on negative catalysts and slower recovery cycles.
Trading Implications
- AI-sector altcoin perps are likely in a compressed funding rate environment; watch for negative funding on leveraged AI tokens as a potential mean-reversion long setup if broader market conditions stabilize.
- Regulatory risk around AI hardware controls and governance frameworks remains unpriced in most crypto derivatives markets — position sizing in AI-adjacent tokens should account for headline-driven volatility spikes.
- The adoption-versus-trust divergence historically precedes sector rotation; traders should monitor open interest shifts out of AI-narrative tokens into infrastructure or layer-1 plays as capital repositions.
- BTC and ETH perp funding rates are less directly exposed to AI sentiment but remain correlated with broader tech risk-on flows — a sustained deterioration in AI public sentiment could weigh on the macro narrative that supported Q4 2024 BTC price action.
- The partisan split on AI regulation introduces binary event risk around potential executive orders or congressional hearings; options traders in correlated markets should consider elevated implied volatility as a hedge rather than a fade.