Institutional investors’ perspective on cryptocurrencies is changing rapidly. According to the last quarter survey published by CoinShares Research, crypto assets are now held in portfolios mostly for diversification purposes. Responses from 26 fund managers who participated in the survey and managed a total of $1.3 trillion in assets showed that diversification and customer demand played a decisive role in 63 percent of institutions allocating funds to crypto. This rate was at 36 percent two years ago.
Speculation gave way to stability
While fund managers were investing in cryptocurrencies largely for speculative purposes until 2024, it turned out that this trend has significantly declined. It was emphasized in the research that speculation now has a share of only 15 percent. “Two years ago, the main reason fund managers held digital assets was speculation; today, this rate has dropped to 15 percent,” said James Butterfill, Director of Research at CoinShares.
Two years ago, the main reason for holding digital assets was speculation. Today, this rate remains at 15 percent.
The survey found that institutions gave a 1 percent weight to crypto assets in their media portfolio. Considering the portfolio size, it appears that this fund group alone has a total crypto asset position of approximately $13 billion.
Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to dominate the distribution
Bitcoin and Ethereum together accounted for 58 percent of institutional portfolios. While interest in alternative coins such as Cardano and Polkadot, which came to the fore in the past years, decreased, it was observed that the demand for DeFi-oriented tokens such as Aave, Sui and Tron increased. It was stated in the CFRA Research note that the crypto assets managed in Coinbase’s custody services increased by 95 percent on an annual basis, reaching 516 billion dollars, and that stablecoins and derivative products were especially effective in this growth.
According to research by Bitwise and VettaFi, 99 percent of financial advisors with crypto exposure in 2026 plan to either maintain or increase their crypto investments, and 64 percent of advisors hold over 2 percent of crypto assets in their client portfolios. The CoinShares report also confirmed that corporate behavior on the asset management side mirrors the trend seen at the financial advisor level.
Strategy’s sale decision tests corporate approach
While a noticeable change was observed in institutional investor movements, another prominent development during the week came from Strategy, led by Michael Saylor. The company, which holds an estimated amount of over 818 thousand BTC, announced that it could sell some of the assets on its balance sheet for dividend payments, stretching the historical “no sales” discourse after the quarterly results. “We will probably sell a little bit of bitcoin to send a market message,” Saylor said.
We will probably sell bitcoin to pay dividends, just to send a message to the market.
This statement marks a return to the “never to be sold” strategy that the company has adopted for a long time. The company, which announced a net loss of $ 12.54 billion in the quarterly financial results, shared that almost all of this was due to the impairment of bitcoin in the balance sheet of $ 14.46 billion. The company reportedly has an annual dividend obligation of $1.5 billion and approximately 18 months of cash reserves.
Recent developments have demonstrated both the limits of leveraged models and the prominence of smaller, cautious and diversified positions in institutional crypto investing. It was stated that the most important reason restricting institutions’ crypto allocation is no longer regulatory uncertainty, but internal compliance restrictions.
CoinShares’ survey; He pointed out that discipline in the corporate investment world has strengthened in this period when leveraged strategies are shaken.
