52% of institutional investors hold crypto – Fidelity survey

The study of Fidelity has shown an increased appetite of institutional investors for Bitcoin and crypto, while a lack of understanding still is a barrier for wider adoption.

The 2021 Institutional Investor Digital Assets Study published by Fidelity Digital Assets tracked institutional investor’s behavior amid the uneasy situation on traditional markets in the past year. However, the study found that those market conditions pushed many investors toward Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, raising the probability of investing in crypto assets up to 44% of investors.

European investors showed a more positive view on Bitcoin than Americans across all the study’s categories, similar to last year’s survey. While Asian investors – this year was the first time that Asian they were part of the survey – showed the most significant tendency to invest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, including 70% saying they were currently holders of crypto assets.

“Across Europe and the U.S., we saw year-over-year growth across nearly every category, including perception and appeal, current exposure, and propensity for future investment,” the report read.

52% of all investors surveyed worldwide said they invest in Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, and 9 in 10 investors see those assets appealing. Furthermore, 84% of European high-net-worth investors said they are invested in the asset class. Institutions see “high potential upside” for future prices as the most appealing attribute of cryptocurrency.

Among the biggest barriers to adoption, 54% of the respondents currently see price volatility, while 44% shared a “lack of fundamentals to gauge appropriate value” as the primary concern.

However, Fidelity also acknowledged in their report that both concerns, volatility and lacking fundamentals, could be considered more as a product of mainstream media and a lack of understanding than flaws of Bitcoin itself.

“Overall, the top concerns cited by investors surveyed tend to align with the primary narratives frequently seen in media coverage of digital assets and bitcoin specifically,” said the report. “As a nascent industry, continued education is important because institutional investors – as well as the financial services industry at large – are still discovering the full potential of the underlying technology.”

The report noted the overall market sentiment towards Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as “neutral-to-positive,” including 70% of all investors surveyed, and 79% of family offices in the US demonstrated that sentiment. While in Asia, practically all financial advisors had a “neutral-to-positive” perception.