Fed Study Finds Bitcoin Gains Can Trigger More Crypto Buying Among U.S. Households

A Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland working paper noted, on July 14, 2026, that Bitcoin’s history acts as a guide for how much cryptocurrency Americans want to hold or buy.

Economists Michael Weber, Bernardo Candia, Olivier Coibion and Yuriy Gorodnichenko analyzed multiple cross-sections of household-survey data in the U.S., with a randomized information experiment in the second quarter of 2025, and an interview sample size per wave of 15,000 to 25,000.

Households who were exposed to the trailing 12-month Bitcoin return increased their target cryptocurrency allocation by two percentage points — approximately a 47% increase over the control group’s mean target allocation of 4.3%.

Households exposed to the trailing Bitcoin return were more likely to purchase cryptocurrency in a later wave of the survey by a margin of 2.5 percentage points.