Recent survey on WM & digital assets in Europe commissioned by CoinShares and conducted through Citywire.
The findings draw on a structured questionnaire administered to 261 qualified wealth management professionals across France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom in Q1 2026.
Link to full report below (PDF):
Survey 2026
Key summary:
- The silent portfolio:
client exposure without adviser oversight - 25% of European advisers report more than half of their clients' digital asset exposure sits outside their management - unmonitored and invisible to the advisory relationship. In the UK, that figure even reaches 52%.
This means that clients are already invested. The question is no longer whether they will allocate but whether advisers will see and manage what clients already hold.
- The institutional lock:
firms determine everything - 61% of advisers work in firms that restrict digital assets or provide no clear guidance - what this report calls "blocked firms". Firm policy shapes everything else. Advisers in supported firms are 4.5x more likely to recommend digital assets to their clients than those in restricted ones. The knowledge gap follows the same pattern: 76% of advisers who feel insufficiently informed work in blocked firms.
- The unlock:
products and regulation,
not education - Regulatory recognition of digital assets as a standard asset class and access to ETPs are the top confidence catalysts. Education tools rank joint last. Even advisers who feel uninformed choose regulatory recognition over education as their primary unlock
- Client barriers:
risk perceptions - Volatility and speculative nature are the most frequently cited client-side barriers. Even among advisers whose clients are more open to digital assets than their firm allows, nearly a third report a management gap above 50%. These clients are already invested, outside the advisory relationship. The barriers do not prevent allocation: they prevent managed allocation.
- Issuer selection:
expertise is the driver - Expertise and track record is the #1 criterion for selecting a digital asset issuer, consistent across all five markets at 73% - more than twice the weight of competitive fees. Secondary priorities diverge: Germany is the only market where fees approach expertise in weight, the UK requires institutional research documentation for investment committee approval, and France shows the least interest in product breadth.
#Digitalassets #innovationcommunity
- Todor
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Todor Kostov
Director
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