Bear market didn’t slow institutional interest in crypto, says Fidelity survey

Asset management giant Fidelity has made stronger moves into crypto over the past month. The firm’s Fidelity Digital Assets division will open up ether (ETH) trading for institutional clients on Oct 28. In late September Fidelity launched a new Ethereum Index Fund for accredited investors that raised nearly $5 million in less than two weeks.

The firm continues to combine its institutional investor and crypto interests with the new fourth annual Fidelity Digital Assets Institutional Investor Digital Assets Study. More than half of those surveyed (58%) had invested in digital assets during the first half of 2022 and 74% planned to invest in the future, according to a press release provided to CoinDesk.

The survey was conducted between Jan. 2 and June 24 this year, covering the shift from the bull to bear market, and included 1,052 institutional investors spread across the U.S., Europe and Asia. The respondents included family offices, digital and traditional hedge funds, pension, financial advisers, endowments and foundations, and high net worth individuals.

“The increased adoption reflected in the data speaks to a strong first half of the year for the digital assets industry,” said Tom Jessop, president of Fidelity Digital Assets. ”While the markets have faced headwinds in recent months, we believe that digital assets fundamentals remain strong and that the institutionalization of the market over the past several years has positioned it to weather recent events,”

The groups with the highest rate of digital asset investments at 87% were crypto hedge funds and venture capital funds who would naturally have a bullish stance on the market. The next highest crypto investor groups were high net worth individuals and financial advisers.

Digital assets ownership was highest among respondents in Asia at 69% followed by Eruope (67%) and the U.S. (42%) with the latter two regions seeing an 11-point and 9-point increase, respectively, compared to the 2021 survey.

The overwhelming majority (88%) of the investors found digital assets appealing due to factors such as the high potential upside, the technology innovation and decentralization. Those refraining from crypto investments cited price volatility and security concerns among the reasons.