Fed Study Reveals Crypto Ownership Stagnates Despite Market Surge

Recent research from the Federal Reserve indicates that cryptocurrency ownership has not increased alongside the market's recent upturn.

According to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Consumer Finance Institute (CFI) dated September 6, the resurgence in crypto values has not led to a rise in ownership among those surveyed.

The CFI tracked cryptocurrency ownership from January 2022 to July 2024, using Bitcoin prices to gauge market conditions. Their findings reveal a drop in ownership during the 2022 bear market, with the percentage of owners falling from 24.6% in January 2022 to 19.1% by October 2022.

Despite market recovery over the next year and a half, ownership rates did not rise significantly, remaining at 17.1% in October 2023 and falling further to 15.4% in January 2024.

Ownership rates showed little change around Bitcoin’s price peak in March and its halving in April, with figures at 16.1% in April and dropping to 14.7% in July. However, the report notes an increase in future purchasing interest, with 21.8% of respondents indicating a likelihood to buy crypto by April 2024, compared to 10.6% during the 2022 market downturn.

The Fed’s data was collected from two web-based surveys of 5,000 nationally representative individuals. Despite a nearly 150% increase in crypto market value since early 2023, ownership figures remain lower than some other estimates, such as Coinbase’s report of 52 million crypto owners in the U.S.