Advisers Allocating Crypto in Clients' Portfolios Rose 49% Last Year: Survey

The number of financial advisers allocating crypto to client portfolios rose 49%, with client interest substantially increasing in the past year, according to a Bitwise survey.

• Bitwise Asset Management said 81% of financial advisers reported they had received a question from a client about crypto in the past 12 months, compared to 76% the previous year.
• The number of advisers allocating to crypto in client portfolios rose from 6.3% to 9.4% in 2020.
• Information was collected from 994 independent registered investment advisers, broker-dealers, financial planners and wirehouse representatives.
• Almost 74% of the advisers said they thought their clients were or could be investing in crypto outside of their adviser relationship.
• Survey findings show that 36% of advisers reported that some or all of their clients were investing in crypto on their own, and 38% had no idea, the remaining 26% were confident that their clients were not investing in crypto.
• The survey found 24% of advisers own bitcoin, ethereum or other crypto assets in their personal portfolios in this year’s survey, up from 17%.
• Those advisers who reported owning crypto in their personal portfolios said they have seen growth in the past year, with 25% of them highlighting “inflation hedging” as an attractive feature of crypto investing.

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