CoinShares survey 2026 : What wealthy investors actually do with digital assets

We asked investors with at least $500,000 to invest why they hold crypto, how much of it, and what they want from their wealth manager. Speculation accounted for 9% of the primary motivations they gave. Several of the other answers contradict what the industry has been assuming about them.

There is a comfortable story about wealthy people and crypto. They arrived late, they are chasing a price, and they will leave when the price stops going up. It is a story that has never needed evidence, because almost nobody has bothered to ask the people it describes.

So we asked. Between 11 May and 5 June 2026, we ran an online survey of 2,230 investors across seven markets: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland. Every respondent held at least $500,000 in investable assets, excluding their home and any other property, and the sample was split evenly between those with $500,000 to $999,999 and those with $1 million or more. Samples were balanced by gender and age, the questionnaire was adapted for each market so that terms such as "wealth manager" carried the same meaning locally, and the fieldwork was carried out for us by Savanta.

The objective was straightforward. Last year we surveyed 500 affluent investors in the United States. This year we wanted an international reference point: not just how many wealthy investors hold digital assets, but why they hold them, how much they hold, where they buy, and what they expect from the people who manage their money. Here are four of the findings. The rest are in the report.

Speculation is the smallest reason anyone gave

Among those who hold digital assets, asked to name their primary motivation for investing in them, speculation, meaning short-term plays and volatility-chasing, accounted for an average of 9% of the reasons given. It never exceeded 11% in any market. Strategic motivations, long-term capital appreciation and portfolio diversification, accounted for 40%, more than double the next category. Interest in the technology and related crypto-native reasons came to 19%. Hedging came to 13%.

The same pattern shows up when investors describe themselves rather than their reasons. Offered four investor profiles, the short-term Trader was the smallest active profile in every single market, peaking at 11% in the UK and falling to 3% in Sweden.

That matters because the industry believes something different. In the 2026 European Wealth Management and Digital Assets Survey we published with Citywire, 261 European wealth managers were asked why they thought clients hesitate on digital assets. The second most common answer, cited by 52% of them, was that crypto is speculative. Set that against what the investors in this survey say: speculation is the smallest of the reasons they give for investing. The two figures are not directly comparable, because one is a share of managers naming a barrier and the other is a share of motivations named by investors. The rank order is the point. Managers put speculation near the top of what they think holds people back; the people themselves put it at the bottom of what brings them in. It is clearly a disagreement about what is actually happening.

It is no longer a minority behaviour

In all seven markets, more than half of affluent investors hold digital assets: from 53% in Sweden to around 70% in the US, the UK, Germany and Switzerland, with France at 66% and Italy at 58%.

The more revealing number is how much they hold. Among those invested, average allocations cluster tightly in the 12% to 15% range, and they do so across markets with very different risk cultures and regulatory regimes. A 15% allocation is roughly what sophisticated investors hold in private equity or commodities, asset classes that took decades to earn their place. Digital assets have arrived at a similar weight in under ten years, and held it through a severe downturn.

Bitcoin is the anchor, not the portfolio

Bitcoin is held by an average of 80% of affluent digital asset investors, rising to 87% in the US. It is almost never held alone. Seven in ten hold bitcoin alongside other digital assets, and bitcoin-only portfolios average 9% of investors, ranging from 5% in the US to 15% in France. Ethereum and stablecoins follow at 59% and 57% respectively.

The people with the most money are the ones asking for help

This is the finding we did not expect to be so lopsided. Across all seven markets, 88% of investors acknowledge they do not have enough knowledge to invest in digital assets with full confidence. Meanwhile 95% believe it is important for a wealth manager to have expertise in digital assets today, and among those open to advisory services on the subject, 98% say they would pay for it.

Wealth managers are, in every market surveyed, the most trusted source of digital asset information these investors have. Peer forums and online communities rank near the bottom. Whatever is driving retail crypto, it is not driving this.

What the full report covers

The four findings above are the ones we can summarise in a paragraph each. The report is where the argument actually gets made, and it goes considerably further:

• Every market broken out individually, on adoption, allocation, motivation and adviser relationship, plus the year-on-year change in the United States since our 2025 wave

• How investors responded to the February 2026 downturn, the sharpest the asset class has seen in years, and what they say they intend to do next

• Regulation, where the answer surprised us: what share of investors want more of it, and how the US policy agenda and the EU's MiCA framework compare as drivers of investment intent

• The macro chapter, on why interest rates and the shifting global economic order now outrank technical analysis as investment triggers in every market

• Geopolitics, and the role digital assets are being asked to play as a hedge

• The generational data, including how much more younger investors allocate, how much more they intend to add, and what they will pay for an adviser who understands the asset class

• How investors actually access digital assets, and what they look for when choosing where to hold them

Download the report