Woofun AI reports that a Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland working paper demonstrates how exposing US households to bitcoin (BTC) performance data directly increases cryptocurrency ownership. The 2025 survey experiment compared a control group against subjects shown information on bitcoin, the S&P 500, GameStop, or the Federal Reserve's inflation forecast to isolate the impact of return visibility.

The experimental design tracked 5,352 respondents across the second through fourth quarters of 2025, revealing that displaying bitcoin's 14% gain over the previous 12 months raised self-reported crypto ownership by 2.41 percentage points. Showing a price chart yielded a similar 2.48 percentage point increase. Given that only 11% owned crypto before the experiment, this represents a roughly 23% relative surge in adoption rates among the surveyed population.

Woofun AI data shows that these treatments immediately elevated desired crypto portfolio allocation by about 2 percentage points from a 4.3% average in the control group. Respondents primarily funded this shift by reducing allocations to cash, checking and savings accounts, while simultaneously increasing planned stock holdings. Expectations for future crypto returns rose by 3.2 percentage points when told of bitcoin's performance, compared to a 1.2 point increase from viewing the price chart alone.

Demographic analysis indicates the strongest response came from individuals who previously avoided crypto due to lack of knowledge, whereas those who viewed it as a bad investment showed no statistically significant change.

Notably, a chart of the S&P 500's performance also increased subsequent crypto ownership, although information about stock returns did not alter desired portfolio allocations in the same manner.

The authors argue that positive returns attract new participants, which raises prices further, creating a feedback loop. They note that individuals do not expect mean reversion but instead rely on extrapolation of past returns into future expectations. This mechanism illustrates how speculative bubbles can develop as gains drive entry and push valuations higher.