A Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland working paper finds that Bitcoin performance information can lift expected crypto returns and later ownership, while return expectations and perceived risk explain U.S. cryptocurrency ownership more strongly than demographics. Titled "Do You Even Crypto, Bro? Cryptocurrencies in Household Finance," the July 14, 2026 paper by Michael Weber, Bernardo Candia, Olivier Coibion and Yuriy Gorodnichenko draws on Nielsen Homescan Panel surveys and a randomized information experiment in the second quarter of 2025. Ownership rose from roughly 3% of respondents in 2021 to about 11% in 2022 and around 12% by mid-2023, later recovering near 12% as Bitcoin traded above $120,000 in 2025. In 2021, owners expected about 22% next-year returns versus 7% among non-owners; by 2025 the gap was 13.8% versus 4.7%, and expected returns and risk had about twice the explanatory power of detailed demographics. Participants told Bitcoin returned 14.3% over the prior year raised expected crypto returns by 3.2 percentage points versus the control group, while those shown a price chart raised them by about 1.2 points. Desired crypto allocations rose about two percentage points from a 4.3% control average, mostly from cash and deposit accounts. Later surveys found ownership likelihood rose about 2.41 percentage points after return information and 2.48 points after the chart; with about 11% already holding crypto, that implied around a 23% relative increase, strongest among less-informed investors. S&P 500 information also raised later crypto ownership, while GameStop information lifted desired allocations without a significant ownership effect. The paper estimated that doubling Bitcoin’s price made a fully crypto-allocated household 1.4 percentage points more likely to buy a durable good that quarter, especially computers and refrigerators, with the effect fading the next quarter. Authors framed extrapolating past gains as a possible bubble mechanism while stressing the research is preliminary and not Federal Reserve policy.