Today, Fidelity Digital Assets published its study of digital assets for institutional investors. While it shows significant increases in adoption, there are significant differences between the types of institutions. For example, a large proportion of financial advisors (73%), high net worth investors (82%), and crypto hedge funds or VCs (87%) have invested in digital assets.

By contrast, traditional hedge funds (7%), endowments (6%) and pension plans (5%) still show limited adoption. A much higher proportion plan to invest in the future, ranging from 29% to 38% for the three low-adoption groups.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents were in the three high-adoption investor types. The research was conducted between January and June this year, covering the market downturn.

Overall positive sentiments for digital assets have risen to 57% from 49%. US participants increased the most, reaching 39% (2021: 29%), with a small decrease in Asia to 63% (2021: 60%).

There was a slight mix of motivations because the belief that cryptocurrencies are uncorrelated to other assets is no longer widely believed. That dropped from third place to fifth place as a catalyst. The main reasons to invest in digital assets are the potential advantages, such as an innovative technological game, decentralization, and freedom from government intervention.

The top three barriers to investing were volatility (50%), lack of valuation rationale (37%) and institutional concerns about safety (35%). Customer security concerns were measured separately (33%). In all cases, concerns were significantly higher in the United States, followed by Europe and Asia.

Meanwhile, Bank of America recently released a survey of wealthy Americans, which showed a dramatic shift in preference for stocks among those 42 and younger.