According to forecasts by State Street analysts, the average share of digital assets in institutional investment portfolios could more than double over the next three years.
On average, investment institutions currently hold around 7% of their assets under management (AUM) in digital assets, but by 2028, this figure is expected to reach 16%. Meanwhile, the total share of digital investment instruments in institutional portfolios exceeds 20% when tokenized and digital forms of traditional assets are included, according to a report by State Street.
The study, conducted in collaboration with Oxford Economics, surveyed 300 investment institutions worldwide, including asset managers, asset owners, and insurance companies, with assets ranging from $1 billion to over $500 billion under management.
The report notes that asset managers are significantly more involved in the digital investment market than asset owners. They are twice as likely to hold 2–5% of their portfolio in Bitcoin (14% vs. 7%) and slightly more likely to have over 5% in the leading cryptocurrency (5% vs. 4%). The difference is even more pronounced when it comes to Ethereum — 6% of asset managers versus 2% of asset owners.
Unexpectedly high activity among asset managers is also seen in riskier instruments: 6% of managers invest at least 5% in altcoins, meme coins, and NFTs, compared to only 1% among asset owners.
In the field of real-world asset tokenization, managers also lead the way:
- public asset tokenization — 6% vs. 1% among asset owners;
- private asset tokenization — 5% vs. 2%;
- digital cash — 7% vs. 2%.
While stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWA) make up the largest portion of digital portfolios, cryptocurrencies remain the main source of returns — 27% of respondents named BTC as their top profit generator, and 21% said the same about ETH. Moreover, 25% and 22% respectively expect these assets to maintain their leading profitability over the next three years.
For comparison, tokenized public assets generate the main returns for 13% of respondents, and private ones for only 10%. These figures are expected to remain stable.
More than half of respondents (52%) expect that by 2030, between 10% and 24% of all investments will be made through digital or tokenized instruments, although only 1% believe that digital assets will completely replace traditional ones.
According to forecasts by investment firm Bitwise, by 2045 around 50% of all Bitcoin supply will be held on corporate balance sheets.
