FIX Global: Asia leads in institutional adoption of digital assets

The latest Institutional Investor Digital Assets Study by Fidelity Digital Assets included responses from Asian investors for the first time this past year, and found they were far more accepting of digital assets than their US and European counterparts. Of the 299 Asian institutional investors surveyed, 71% had adopted digital assets, with 9 in 10 indicating they were actively exploring opportunities. This compares to digital asset adoption among 56% of the European institutional investors surveyed and 33% of the US ones.

There was also significant divergence in opinion among Asian investors when asked about more nuanced aspects of digital assets, such as arbitrate and yield opportunities. The study concluded that the differentiated interest in these more complex spaces of the digital asset market is yet another way in which Asian institutional investors are ahead of the curve relative to the West within this asset class.

“Asia was definitely an early mover when it came to institutional focus on digital assets, but the rest of the world is starting to catch up,” observed Samar Sen, head of Asia at US-based crypto-trading engineering company Talos. Until recently, “unless an investment firm launched as a digital-native crypto fund, it was challenging to enter the market in a significant way due to concerns around security, custody, liquidity, settlement, regulation, AML and so on,” he added. “These have largely been addressed over the past few years with the help of firms like Talos, and we are now seeing the largest institutional investors enter the markets at scale, in Asia and globally.”