Overview
- The working paper published July 14, 2026 reports a Q2 2025 randomized experiment using Nielsen Homescan Panel surveys in which showing Bitcoin’s 12‑month performance lifted desired crypto allocations by about two percentage points and later increased actual purchases by roughly 2.5 percentage points.
- Crypto owners expressed far higher return expectations than non-owners, with survey averages falling from about 22% versus 7% in 2021 to about 13.8% versus 4.7% in 2025, and many non-owners answering “don’t know” about expected returns.
- The authors find expected-return beliefs predict ownership better than demographics, with each extra percentage point in expected returns linked to roughly a 0.8 percentage point higher chance of owning crypto.
- The treatment effect was strongest for non-owners who said they lacked information, only a minority of households changed ownership between waves, and the pooled Bitcoin treatment result was statistically significant with a reported p-value near 0.017.
- The paper also links Bitcoin gains to modest rises in durable-goods spending for crypto-heavy households — a doubling in Bitcoin’s price raised the probability of a durable purchase by about 1.4 percentage points — and the study is preliminary research that does not represent official Fed policy.