It’s an oft-told anecdote littering social media: Those who invested early in cryptocurrencies have enjoyed life-changing wealth.
How much that extra cash gives them confidence to spend more — a phenomenon economists call the wealth effect — is a hot topic whenever crypto prices are surging.
A group of researchers tried to quantify it and determined that crypto bonanzas in the United States aren’t exactly spent like windfalls from winning the lottery. And so far, the effect has been relatively modest on the $28 trillion American economy.