Key Takeaways
Wealthy investors increasingly see bitcoin and crypto as a top long-term performer.Bitcoin leads digital assets in both ownership and desired exposure.Investors cite appreciation and diversification more than hedging as reasons to invest.
These were the findings of a study by Vardaxoglou Advisory, a boutique strategic research consultancy, and Coinshares, a major European digital asset-focused asset manager. Between May 11 and June 5, 2026, they surveyed 2,230 respondents in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, with at least $500,000 in investable assets.
In the U.S., U.K., France and Germany, 33%-40% of respondents ranked “crypto” above equities and real estate when it came to long-term performance expectations. Meanwhile, in Italy and Sweden, bitcoin and other crypto assets were outpaced only by equities. In Switzerland, “crypto” lost to both equities and real estate. Bonds and commodities were also among the options, but the report doesn’t publish their results.
What’s more, conviction in digital assets among U.S. respondents increased by 13 percentage points compared with the 2025 survey.
Bitcoin Dominance and Future Plans
However, other findings of the study add more nuance to this picture. For example, bitcoin was the most wanted crypto asset in all the surveyed countries, but very few investors hold BTC alone, while one in five crypto asset holders owns no bitcoin.
By comparison, on average, 58% of crypto holders own ether, 57% own stablecoins, and 36% own other altcoins. Meanwhile, BTC also leads the rankings of which asset investors want more exposure to. Depending on the country, 65%-77% of them want to gain further exposure to bitcoin, compared with 30%-47% for ether.
Overall, the study found that in five of the seven markets, at least 85% of respondents who already held digital assets were extremely or very likely to increase their exposure in 2026.
The Gap Between Words and Actions
Another gap appears between what these wealthy investors say they believe about bitcoin and the reasons they give for investing in digital assets. Bitcoin is overwhelmingly seen as playing a significant role in the future global financial system and as a hedge against fiat currency debasement, with 65%-86% of respondents holding this view.
However, only 9%-19% of crypto asset holders named hedging as their primary reason for investing in digital assets. Primary reasons remained long-term capital appreciation and portfolio diversification. However, this question didn’t single out bitcoin specifically.
Crypto asset-native reasons for investing, such as interest in blockchain technology, income from staking or decentralized finance (DeFi), and exposure to a new asset class, appeared in 27% of the answers across the countries on average. Bitcoin.com News has also reported that this recent BTC rally once again has little to do with Bitcoin itself.
Different Surveys, Different Results
These results come from only several countries in total, and other surveys show a slightly different picture. For example, the HSBC Affluent Investor Snapshot 2026, based on a survey of almost 10,000 affluent and high-net-worth investors in 10 markets in January and February this year, showed that mean crypto asset allocation was 6%, down 1 percentage point from 2025.
Meanwhile, the Coinshares study showed that investors kept around 10% of their portfolios in crypto assets. Besides investors in the U.S. and U.K., HSBC surveyed people in Asia, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.
In either case, 45% of participants in the HSBC survey—conducted between Jan. 6 and Feb. 6, 2026, when bitcoin peaked just above $97,000 before falling below $70,000—said they planned to increase investments in crypto assets in 2026. Forty percent said they planned to keep allocations stable. Meanwhile, a recent survey of 15 major institutional investors showed that none of them reduced their crypto asset allocation during the drawdown this year, while several bought more.
