Institutional crypto capital held firm through a 50% drawdown, study finds
Ethereum and Solana occupy a fundamentally different category. Institutions that hold these assets carry shorter time horizons and explicit performance conditions, generally tied to whether real-world adoption translates to token value within the next few years. Several institutions hold neither, citing an inability to identify a clear mechanism by which user activity accrues value to the underlying token.
The barriers that remain are operational, not analytical
Ryan Rasmussen, Head of Research at Bitwise, noted a pattern that held across institution types: the debate about whether crypto belongs in a portfolio has largely been resolved. What slows allocation now is fitting crypto into existing investment policy frameworks, navigating board and committee processes, and managing perceived reputational risk.
“What stands out across these conversations is how consistent the thinking has become,” Rasmussen said. “Institutions with different mandates, governance, and constraints have arrived at a strikingly similar view of how to approach crypto in their portfolios.”
Career risk remains a material force, particularly at public-facing institutions. The report notes that pension funds, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds all named it as a factor, and that institutions tend to allocate in clusters, once a critical mass of peers discloses a position, the career-risk calculus shifts from “I allocated and it went wrong” to “everyone else allocated and I missed it.”
Among those that have not yet allocated, the report found many were already in advanced stages of due diligence. The barriers are falling as spot crypto ETF proliferation expands, regulation improves, and peer disclosure grows. Bitwise expects a majority of institutional investors globally to hold crypto within five years.
