The rate of cryptocurrency ownership isn’t growing in tandem with the recent resurgence in the crypto market, according to United States Federal Reserve research.
“Recent growth in the [crypto] market has not been accompanied by an increase in ownership in our survey population,” the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Consumer Finance Institute (CFI) said in a Sept. 6 report.
The CFI collected data on cryptocurrency ownership through surveys between January 2022 and July 2024 using the price of Bitcoin (BTC) as a proxy to determine that the depths of crypto winter occurred in late 2022.
It found crypto ownership decreased during the 2022 crypto winter bear market, with ownership rates falling from 24.6% of the surveyed population in January 2022 to 19.1% in October 2022.
However, despite the market recovery over the following 18 months, ownership rates did not correspondingly increase with just 17.1% of those surveyed owning crypto in October 2023, which dropped to 15.4% in January 2024.
The CFI report found that there was no significant increase in ownership around Bitcoin’s March price peak and its April halving, with ownership rates at 16.1% in April and dropping to 14.7% two months later in July.
Bitcoin’s price compared to surveyed crypto ownership rates: Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
The Fed researchers noted that this year’s price increases do “seem to correspond to an increase in the percentage of respondents who are likely to purchase crypto in the future.”
Interest in future crypto purchases declined during the 2022 crypto winter from 18.8% to 10.6% of all respondents.
As the market recovered, interest increased significantly with 21.8% of all respondents stating they were likely to purchase crypto in the future by April 2024.
Related: Global crypto user base surpassed half a billion in 2023 — Crypto.com report
The Fed surveys were collected from two different web-based surveys targeting 5,000 nationally representative responses.
Crypto markets have gained almost 150% since the beginning of 2023, despite the market downtrend since mid-March.
In May, the Fed reported a survey of over 11,000 respondents found crypto ownership or usage was around 18 million people in the United States in 2023, a lower figure compared to Coinbase’s September 2023 finding that 52 million Americans owned crypto.