Institutions held crypto through 50% market decline, Bitwise says

Institutional investors did not retreat from crypto during a market decline of about 50%, according to reporting by news.bitcoin.com on Bitwise’s latest adoption study. The digital-asset manager interviewed 15 major institutions and found that none had cut its allocation between October 2025 and April 2026. Several added to their holdings instead.

The report, published on Sept. 23, is based on interviews carried out from late March through April. It portrays institutional adoption as developing through private reviews and investment structures that may not immediately appear in public filings.

The group included both existing holders and institutions still considering their first allocation. Several prospective investors had reached an advanced stage of due diligence, while multiple sovereign wealth funds were assessing positions that could be substantial. One sovereign investor told Bitwise that putting the legal and regulatory arrangements in place could take more than a year.

Investors stayed through the downturn

None of the institutions interviewed identified a price fall as a reason to sell. Their responses suggest that at least some investors view crypto allocations through a long-term adoption framework rather than as short-term trades.

An investment consultant interviewed by Bitwise said selling during the decline could mean exiting before wider adoption had developed. The consultant pointed to the expected pattern of rapid growth often associated with emerging technologies, describing the concern as “selling too early.”

The size of current allocations varied considerably. Crypto represented between 0.5% and 13% of investable assets among the institutions in the interviews, although most held between 1% and 2%. Family offices generally reported the biggest percentages and could sometimes secure approval from a single principal. Sovereign wealth funds usually held smaller positions, partly because decisions passed through more layers of review.

Bitwise said allocation size tended to move in the opposite direction from the number of people required to approve an investment. A family office with one decision-maker could therefore act more quickly than a large public institution with a lengthy approval process.

Bitcoin was present in every portfolio represented by the current holders. It was typically their first crypto investment, their largest position and the asset they had held for the longest period. Some investors also owned ether or solana, but their willingness to hold those assets depended on whether increased use of the underlying networks would translate into value for the tokens.

ETFs are simplifying access

The route into the market has also become less complicated for many institutions. Almost all of Bitwise’s interviewees either used spot crypto exchange-traded funds or expected to use them. Lower costs and easier administration were among the reasons cited for choosing those products.

A spot bitcoin ETF gives investors exposure to bitcoin’s price through shares held in a brokerage account, while the fund provider manages custody of the underlying asset. That arrangement can reduce the operational burden associated with buying and storing crypto directly.

Public records do not show the full scale of institutional ownership, Bitwise found. Some investors use structures that fall outside Form 13F reporting, meaning disclosed filings provide only a partial view of the market.

There are nevertheless examples of large positions in public data. Two Abu Dhabi investment vehicles held almost $764 million in shares of BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF at the end of June. Together, they did not reduce their net share count during the second quarter. Those holdings are separate from the unnamed institutions included in Bitwise’s interviews.

More demand may emerge gradually

Bitwise expects institutional ownership to expand as investors finish their reviews and additional allocations become public. The asset manager argues that each credible disclosure can make the next investment easier for another institution to justify by reducing the reputational risk attached to entering the market.

The firm forecasts that most institutional investors will hold crypto within five years. That is a Bitwise prediction, not a finding that can be established from the 15 interviews.

Other survey results point to continued interest, though planned investments are not the same as completed purchases. In a poll of wealth managers discussed by Bitwise research chief Ryan Rasmussen on Sept. 8, 60% said they expected to allocate to crypto within a year, while 67% said they had no allocation at the time. The two figures reflect different aspects of the respondents’ position: many were considering an investment but had not yet made one.

A separate survey by Coinbase and EY-Parthenon, conducted in January among 351 institutional investors, found that nearly three-quarters planned to increase their crypto exposure in 2026. Almost half also said volatility had prompted greater attention to risk controls, liquidity and position size.

Within portfolios, Bitwise found that institutions often placed bitcoin alongside gold and classified crypto investments under technology or innovation. Regulatory improvements and evidence of wider institutional participation could encourage more investors to follow, but the report also indicates that approval procedures may make adoption a gradual process rather than a single wave of buying.