None of the 15 institutions Bitwise interviewed cut their crypto holdings during a roughly 50% market drawdown, and several bought more. Every institution that owned crypto held Bitcoin, while Ether and Solana drew smaller, more conditional bets.
None of the 15 institutions interviewed by asset manager Bitwise cut their crypto allocations during a roughly 50% market drawdown, and several bought more. The interviews, part of Bitwise's Institutional Crypto Adoption Report, ran through late March and April, amid a market decline that began in October 2025.
Bitwise spoke with investment professionals at endowments, foundations, public pensions, sovereign wealth funds, multi-family offices, investment consultants and public companies. None of them cited falling prices as a reason to sell. Instead, respondents pointed to a regulatory reversal, an industry-wide credibility crisis or a failure of their investment thesis.
Bitcoin anchors institutional portfolios
Every institution in the group that owned crypto held Bitcoin, usually as its largest and longest-held position. Most treated it as a store of value, often alongside gold.
Crypto allocations among institutions with exposure ranged from 0.5% to 13% of investable assets, though most sat between 1% and 2%. Bitwise said almost every institution interviewed either used spot crypto ETFs or planned to. Some were shifting from private placements or direct custody toward spot ETFs.
Ether and Solana face a higher bar
Conviction around Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) was less consistent than around Bitcoin. Several institutions said they could exit ETH or SOL over the next few years if growth in areas such as stablecoins, decentralized finance and tokenization failed to translate into value accruing to the assets themselves.
One institution that held neither Ether nor Solana had used DeFi applications extensively but saw no clear way that activity would benefit the underlying tokens, Bitwise found. A separate CoinShares 13F report published in June found that professional investors' reported US spot Bitcoin ETF exposure fell 17% in the first quarter, with hedge funds and brokerages accounting for roughly 96% of the reduction while banks added exposure.
Source: Cointelegraph.com News
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