The mood around digital assets has shifted again among the world’s largest allocators, according to Ron Biscardi, CEO of iConnections, which hosts one of the largest capital introduction conferences globally.
Biscardi, who has spent more than 25 years in the alternative investment industry and operates a platform representing over $55 trillion in assets, has a front row seat. His firm tracks thousands of meetings between fund managers and institutional investors each year. This data shows how quickly sentiment can turn.
After a few “tough” years following the crypto market crash following the 2022 FTX collapse, interest began to stabilize at last year’s conference, he recalls. “[In 2025] we started to see funds that would come back, would spend some money,” he said.Optimism about a more crypto-friendly regulatory stance in Washington helped, although progress has been slow.
“I like what we see now at the event [this year] is a more normal experience,” Biscardi said. “It’s not extremely crazy, but it’s not either [like] “I don’t want to get anywhere near it.”
A change of tone
More than 75 digital asset funds participated in this year’s event, generating around 750 meetings between managers and allocators, a level comparable to 2022, when crypto interest skyrocketed before the FTX collapse. Almost a quarter of limited partners on the iConnections platform now indicate interest in digital asset strategies, reinforcing that crypto has become an established sleeve in alternatives rather than a fringe allocation.
Family offices represent the largest LP cohort expressing interest, consistent with their track record of supporting new and innovation-driven asset classes.
And this trend has been increasing in recent years. While some family offices remain wary of the asset, many traditional wealth managers are under increasing pressure to provide digital assets to wealthy clients, particularly in crypto hotspots such as Dubai, Switzerland and Singapore.
This interest is very much alive despite the crypto winter, with the price of bitcoin down nearly 25% since the beginning of the year, and its market cap has lost more than a trillion in value since October’s all-time high. Shares of popular crypto companies such as Coinbase (COIN) or Strategy (MSTR) are also trading significantly lower this year, underperforming most other tech stocks.
However, Biscardi believes that digital asset managers are “very, very close to achieving institutional legitimacy.” Bitcoin, he said, has already crossed that line, but altcoins are close. “The last piece is really the regulatory framework that lets them do it safely.”
For investment managers, that question dominates. “The regulatory hurdles are number one,” Biscardi said. “It just always goes back to that.”
Great allocators, he noted, are fiduciaries. “It’s not their money, they’re trustees for other people’s money, and it can be a super interesting category, but they just won’t allocate there until they can tell their board that they’re doing it in a responsible and safe way.”
The tone of the debate has also changed. In 2022, some investors still questioned whether crypto was real or a Ponzi scheme. “That I don’t hear any more of that,” Biscardi said.
In fact, some traditionally conservative capital pools have stepped in, for example. Funds, which tend to focus on long-term stability and avoid sharp swings in new asset classes, have begun allocating to bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds. The idea is not to overhaul portfolios, but to add measured exposure that could lift returns in a year where crypto markets are performing well, especially as many investors expect stocks to deliver more muted gains than in the past decade.
Still a risky asset
Nevertheless, allocators treat bitcoin “much more like a risk asset” than a store of value. “Bitcoin just hasn’t behaved that way,” he said, pointing to its correlation with stocks rather than gold during market stress.
Similarly, direct token purchases remain rare among institutions. Instead, he hears more about ETFs and fund structures. Limited partners rely on general partners to select specific coins. “The LPs that are being bought into the space are really looking to the GPs to make those decisions.”
What is not rare are crypto companies investing in spreading awareness of their products and services. According to Biscardi, the number of sponsorships saw a significant increase at this year’s event, with companies such as BitGo (BTGO), Galaxy Digital (GLXY), Ripple and Blockstream all holding top-tier sponsor status.
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