Crypto AI Visibility Index 2.0: Which Brands AI Engines Name to U.S. Crypto Buyers

When U.S. crypto buyers ask an AI engine where to buy, store or invest, one brand comes up more than any other: Coinbase. For version 2.0 of its Crypto AI Visibility Index, 5W asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity 24 buyer questions, such as "What is the best crypto exchange for beginners?", three times each on October 21, 2026. Coinbase was named in 146 of the 288 answers (50.7%). Fidelity (37.5%) and Gemini (36.1%) are close behind and cannot be told apart at this sample size, followed by Kraken (30.6%). The same questions run as Google searches triggered an AI Overview 70 times out of 72, and Coinbase was named in 37 of them.

A brand counts as named when its name appears in an answer. Naming is not an endorsement: some answers name a brand as the weaker option. This version replaces the first with a fully documented method, so its numbers should not be compared with the earlier report.

What does this index analyze?

The index analyzes which crypto brands AI engines name, in what order, and from which sources, when U.S. buyers ask real buyer questions.

It is a measurement of what AI answers say, not of the brands themselves.

What does it measure in each answer?

• Appearance: how often an answer names the brand.
• Position: the average order in which the brand is first named.
• Own-site citations: how often an answer cites the brand's own website.
• Sources: which third-party sites the engines cite, such as crypto media, regulators and YouTube.

Which questions and engines does it cover?

The 24 questions span ten subcategories: U.S. centralized exchanges, brokerage and fintech crypto apps, bitcoin-only services, crypto IRAs, hardware wallets, software and web3 wallets, institutional custody, spot bitcoin ETFs, spot ether ETFs and stablecoins. Each question was asked three times on each of four AI engines, and the same questions were run as Google searches to capture AI Overviews.

What does it not measure?

Naming is not an endorsement. The index does not rate safety, fees, regulatory standing or suitability.

What are the key findings?

Coinbase leads, regulators barely register, and the bitcoin ETF field is crowded. Nine findings stand out.

Which brands lead?

• Coinbase is named in about half of AI crypto answers. It appeared in 146 of 288 answers (50.7%, 95% interval 44.9% to 56.4%), led on all five engines, and was named in 37 of 70 Google AI Overviews (52.9%).
• Fidelity and Gemini are close behind. Fidelity ranked second at 108 of 288 (37.5%), counting Fidelity Crypto, Fidelity Digital Assets and its FBTC fund as one brand. Its interval overlaps Gemini's (36.1%), so the two cannot be told apart.
• There is no duopoly. Coinbase and Kraken together hold 9.6% of all brand mentions, spread across 86 brands.

Where is the field crowded or tied?

• The bitcoin ETF field is crowded. BlackRock's IBIT was named first in 11 of 12 best-ETF answers, yet Fidelity, Bitwise and VanEck appeared in all 24 bitcoin ETF answers and BlackRock in 22.
• Ledger and Trezor tie. Each was named in 35 of 36 hardware-wallet answers. Ledger was named first 6 times and Trezor 5 times on "What is the best hardware crypto wallet?".
• River and Swan Bitcoin appeared in every bitcoin-only answer. Both were named in 24 of 24, ahead of Cash App (91.7%) and Strike (87.5%).
• Kraken earns the most own-site citations of the top 25 brands. Its own site, including its support and blog pages, was cited in 33 of 286 grounded answers (11.5%), the highest rate of any top-25 brand.

What do AI engines cite?

• Regulators barely register. sec.gov appeared in 12 of 286 grounded four-engine answers (4.2%), and FINRA and the OCC in none. Coin Bureau (25.5%) and CoinLedger (25.2%) were each cited about six times as often.
• Google shows an AI Overview on 97.2% of crypto searches. That is 70 of 72 searches, and YouTube was cited in 27.1% of the overviews, against 5.9% for the four AI engines.

What is new in version 2.0?

Version 2.0 replaces the first version's estimates with measured counts, so the two should not be compared. The first version, released in 2026, reported estimated citation share from more than 65 prompts. This version asks 24 buyer questions three times each on four AI engines (288 answers) and adds 72 Google searches that produced 70 AI Overviews.

Every rate now comes with its count and a 95% interval, and the methodology lists the exact model settings. Where the two versions differ, Version 2 supersedes the first.

The biggest change is concentration. The first version reported Coinbase and Kraken holding 22% of AI citations. Counted by mentions across 86 brands, the two together hold under 10%.

Appearance rate with 95% interval · Top 15 of 288 answers

Coinbase's interval (44.9% to 56.4%) clears every rival, while Fidelity, Gemini and Kraken overlap, so only Coinbase's lead is clear at this sample size. Ledger's and Trezor's counts, like Coinbase's and Kraken's, include answers to a question that names them.

Coinbase is named in 146 of 288 answers, and no other brand is named in more than 108. The table ranks all 25 by answers naming the brand, with where each brand appears in the answer and how often its own website is cited.

First-mention position is the average order in which a brand appeared among tracked brands when it appeared, where 1 means named first. Own-site citations count grounded answers that cited the brand's own website. A brand's own site includes its subdomains, such as help, support and blog pages; Fidelity's also includes fidelitydigitalassets.com, because Fidelity Digital Assets is counted as part of Fidelity. Questions 3 and 7 name two brands each (Coinbase and Kraken, Ledger and Trezor), so those four brands' counts include up to 12 answers each that name them by construction. Brands with equal counts are tied.

How do ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity differ?

Coinbase leads on all five engines, and almost everything else changes by engine. Each engine answered the same 24 questions three times (72 answers), and rates use that engine's own answers as the denominator.

5W CRYPTO AI VISIBILITY INDEX 2.0 · EACH ENGINE'S OWN ANSWERS (72 PER AI ENGINE, 70 GOOGLE AI OVERVIEWS), OCTOBER 21, 2026

ChatGPT and Perplexity named Gemini the exchange far more often (43.1% and 44.4%) than Claude (29.2%) or Gemini the engine (27.8%). Gemini the engine was the only engine to put BlackRock iShares in its top three (34.7%). ChatGPT is the only engine that put Binance.US second.

Google showed an AI Overview on 70 of 72 crypto searches (97.2%). The overviews named Coinbase in 37 (52.9%) and cited YouTube in 27.1% of them, the highest of any source. Adding the 70 overviews to the four engines gives 358 answers, and the top five stay the same: Coinbase 51.1%, Fidelity 35.8%, Gemini 31.6%, Kraken 29.1% and Binance.US 24.0%.

FIVE-ENGINE APPEARANCE RATE · 358 ANSWERS · TOP 10

Who leads each crypto subcategory?

No brand wins every subcategory, so Coinbase's overall lead hides ten separate races. The same answers are regrouped by the subcategory each question was written for, and each rate uses that subcategory's own answer count.

5W CRYPTO AI VISIBILITY INDEX 2.0 · ANSWERS PER SUBCATEGORY (24 TO 48), OCTOBER 21, 2026

In subcategories with ties at 100%, every tied brand was named in every answer, so they share the lead.

FOUR AI ENGINES · % OF 286 GROUNDED

GOOGLE AI OVERVIEWS · % OF 70

Coin Bureau, CoinLedger and CryptoSlate are each cited in more than one in five answers, five to six times as often as sec.gov. FINRA and the OCC were cited in none. Kraken's own-site rate in the top 25 table (11.5%) includes its subdomains, such as support and blog pages. The chart above shows kraken.com alone, at 9.1%.

How often are regulators, finance media and trackers cited?

Google AI Overviews lean on YouTube and consumer-finance sites, while the four AI engines lean on crypto media and data trackers. Counts are answers that cited the source at least once.

What do AI engines tell crypto buyers?

Beginners get Coinbase, ETF buyers get IBIT, and a head-to-head comparison splits between Kraken on fees and Coinbase on ease of use.

Each of the first four rows covers 12 four-engine answers (four engines, three runs), so treat the counts as directional.

What should crypto brands do about AI visibility?

The data points to five moves: earn coverage on the sites engines cite, publish pages engines can cite, add video, win a specific use case, and track each engine on its own.

1. Earn coverage where the engines already look. Coin Bureau, CoinLedger and CryptoSlate are each cited in more than one in five answers, while sec.gov appears in 4.2%. Pitch data and expert commentary to those sites and to comparison sites such as NerdWallet and Investopedia.
2. Publish pages on your own site that engines can cite. Kraken's own site is cited in 11.5% of grounded answers, Fidelity's in 7.3% and Swan Bitcoin's in 7.0%. Bitwise ranks eighth, but its own site was cited in just 1 of 286 answers.
3. Add video. Google AI Overviews cite YouTube in 27.1% of overviews, against 5.9% for the four AI engines.
4. Win a specific use case. No brand wins every subcategory. Robinhood is named in 94.4% of brokerage and fintech app answers, where Coinbase is named in 55.6%. Pick the question you want to own and build for it.
5. Track each engine on its own. Coinbase leads every engine, but the rest of each top five changes. ChatGPT and Perplexity name Gemini the exchange in 43.1% and 44.4% of answers, and Claude in 29.2%.

“When a buyer asks an AI engine where to buy crypto, the answer names a handful of brands. Coinbase is in half of those answers, 86 brands fight for the rest, and the engines cite crypto media far more than they cite regulators. PR decides who gets named. Earn the coverage the engines read, and you earn the answer.”

RONN TOROSSIAN, FOUNDER OF 5W

5W's GEO practice helps brands earn citations in AI answers. Contact info@5wpr.com or 212.999.5585, or see 5wpr.com/practice/geo-optimization.

How was the index measured?

On October 21, 2026, 5W asked 24 U.S. buyer questions three times each on four AI engines, producing 288 answers, and captured Google AI Overviews for the same questions. The audience was first-time and experienced U.S. retail crypto buyers. The study uses 12 core questions and 12 added neutral buyer questions. The destination site (5wpr.com) was not passed to any engine.

24 questions × 3 runs × 4 engines = 288 answers, plus 24 questions × 3 runs = 72 Google searches, of which 70 returned an AI Overview.

Which models and settings were used?

Grounded means the answer carried search citations. Gemini returned two answers without searching, and they stay in the denominator. Claude's first pass returned empty text because its 900-token budget was spent on reasoning, so it was re-run with a larger budget and the empty rows were replaced.

How are the metrics defined?

• Appearance rate: answers naming the brand divided by answers returned, with Wilson score 95% intervals.
• Brand detection: tracked brands are matched in the answer text and in the extracted entity list. Products roll up to the parent brand: IBIT and ETHA to BlackRock iShares, FBTC and Fidelity Digital Assets to Fidelity, USDC to Circle, and Coinbase Wallet to Coinbase.
• First-mention position: the average order in which the brand was first named among tracked brands, in answers where it appears.
• Own-site citation: grounded answers citing the brand's own website or its subdomains, divided by grounded answers. Fidelity's count includes fidelitydigitalassets.com.
• Mention share: a brand's appearances divided by all tracked-brand appearances (2,430).
• Four-engine and five-engine figures: four-engine figures exclude Google AI Overviews; five-engine figures add the 70 overviews that appeared (358 answers).

The index measures how often AI engines name brands. It does not rate safety, fees or suitability.

What should readers know about the data?

• Measured on one day, October 21, 2026.
• Stored answer text is capped at 4,000 characters, and brands after the cap count only if the entity extractor listed them.
• Questions 3 and 7 name two brands each, so Coinbase, Kraken, Ledger and Trezor counts include up to 12 answers each that name them by construction.
• "Gemini" counts the Gemini exchange. No answer referred to Google Gemini by that name.
• Binance.US includes answers that name the global Binance exchange (43 answers name Binance without ".US", and 35 name Binance.US).
• AI Overviews were captured on desktop in one U.S. location and may differ by device and location.
• Intervals treat each answer as independent, so they understate uncertainty for the 24 repeated questions.

Which 5W guides cover crypto PR?

Five guides cover the communications side of these findings, from proof of reserves to creator campaigns, and each links back to this index.

• Crypto PR company guide covers media relations, proof of reserves, crisis response and AI search for exchanges and wallets.
• Bitcoin PR guide covers custody and security beats for bitcoin companies.
• Institutional blockchain PR guide covers compliance and business-outcome messaging for institutions.
• Web3 influencer marketing guide covers ambassadors, disclosure and creator agreements.
• Web3 SEO and content guide covers how startups build pages that answer buyer questions.

About 5W

5W is an independent PR, creative and GEO agency founded in 2003, headquartered in Florida with a second office in New York. It does all its work in house, including media, site building and content. 5W combines public relations, digital marketing, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and proprietary AI visibility research to help brands grow their presence in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.

5W has been named a top U.S. PR agency by O'Dwyer's, named Agency of the Year in the American Business Awards, honored as a Top Place to Work in Communications in 2026 by Ragan, and named to the Digiday WorkLife Employer of the Year list. Clients span Beauty & Fashion, Consumer Brands, Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Health & Wellness, Travel & Hospitality, Technology and Nonprofit, along with Corporate Communications, Reputation Management, Public Affairs, Crisis Communications and Digital Marketing.

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