Coinbase study finds over 75% of institutional investors to increase crypto exposure

When bitcoin's price was soaring toward its all-time high of above $100,000 earlier in the year, Coinbase found in a study that the vast majority of institutional investors had plans to buy more crypto and crypto-related investments in 2025.

Coinbase and research partner EY-Parthenon said in a blog post on Tuesday that a survey of over 350 institutional investors found that "more than three-quarters of surveyed investors expect to increase their allocations to digital assets in 2025, with 59% planning to allocate over 5% of assets under management to digital assets or related products."

"The level of adoption in the highest high net worth individuals and family offices for some level of crypto, tokenized real-world assets, and DeFi was already quite high, but now the interest is spreading broadly into the institutional investor space," said Paul Brody, who is a global blockchain leader at EY.

The study was held in mid-January, right as the price of bitcoin was increasing and reaching its all-time high of over $108,000. Respondents also made their estimations before Donald Trump had taken office as U.S. president and began filling his new government with crypto-friendly bureaucrats. 

Coinbase said that the institutional investors it spoke to cited "regulatory clarity" as the top reason for increasing their allocation of digital assets or digital asset-related products. Last year, popular crypto funds like BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF launched to much fanfare, attracting billions of dollars in new capital.

"Sixty percent of investors prefer to gain exposure to crypto through registered vehicles" like exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, the study also said.

Besides respondents mentioning their interest in ETFs and stablecoins, Coinbase also found that 74% of surveyed investors "hold one or more altcoins" outside of holdings in bitcoin and ether. 

Brody said interest rates coming down could spur additional demand. "There are a lot of use cases for DeFi, but in the institutional space, I think demand will really take off if interest rates come down,"  he said. "DeFi offers a mechanism for squeezing additional return from the same asset by doing things like adding it to a liquidity pool or borrowing against its value."

Since Coinbase and EY-Parthenon's study was conducted, the crypto market has suffered increased volatility, with the price of bitcoin recently dropping below $80,000. 

Updated to clarify Paul Brody's title and organization.