Survey: 70% of institutional investors ready to buy crypto

Research by Fidelity Digital Assets showed that 90% of those interested in buying digital assets plan to do so in the next five years

A recent survey found that 70% of institutional investors anticipate investing in or buying digital assets at some point in the future, according to a Reuters report today.

The survey was conducted between December 2020 and April 2021 by institutional crypto custody services provider Fidelity Digital Assets with Coalition Greenwich and the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology.

The 1,100 global institutional investors from Fidelity Digital Assets surveyed included hedge funds, high net worth investors, financial advisors, family offices and endowments.

About a third of American respondents already hold digital asset investments, which is an increase from the 27% who held digital assets in 2020. Meanwhile, just over half of the investors surveyed across the US, Europe and Asia hold investments in digital assets.

The survey showed that 80% of institutional investors believe that digital assets have a place in their portfolios, with Asian respondents having the strongest belief while 77% of Europeans agreed and 69% of Americans.

This revealed a marked change from a previous survey conducted by Fidelity Digital Assets between November 2019 and March 2020, in which just 60% of institutional investors thought digital assets belonged in their investment portfolio.

Head of Sales and Marketing at Fidelity, Christine Sandler, told Institutional Investor today, “There’s an overall positive sentiment about digital assets. By 2026, we expect digital assets to be even more mainstream.”

The survey would appear to back this up as about 90% of those interested in investing in digital assets in the future anticipate doing so within the next five years, either directly or via exposure through investment products or crypto stocks.

There are, however, still factors that are slowing down institutional adoption. The research showed that investors believe the biggest obstacle is price volatility, while other causes of reticence include market manipulation concerns and a lack of transparency, tools and fundamentals to assess the value of cryptocurrencies.

Despite these worries, there is still clearly a growing interest in cryptocurrencies among institutions. The hopes of respondents for the future of digital asset investing include better crypto safety and security, as well as more services, like market and data analytics and greater access to electronic trading platforms.