Bitcoin’s drop this year and the loss of more than $1 trillion in market value from its all-time high have not pushed major allocators away from digital assets. Ron Biscardi, CEO of iConnections, said the tone at this year’s event felt closer to normal: no longer euphoric, but no longer defined by avoidance either.
Biscardi, who has spent more than 25 years in alternative investments, runs a platform representing over $55 trillion in assets and tracks thousands of meetings each year between fund managers and institutional investors. From that vantage point, he said the market went through a difficult stretch after the 2022 collapse tied to FTX, then began to stabilize by last year’s conference. By 2025, funds were starting to come back and were willing to spend again.
Digital asset meetings rebound to levels seen before the FTX collapse
More than 75 digital asset funds took part in this year’s event, producing roughly 750 meetings between managers and allocators. Biscardi said that was comparable to 2022, when interest in crypto was surging before the FTX failure. On the iConnections platform, nearly one quarter of limited partners now indicate interest in digital asset strategies. That suggests crypto has moved into a recognized sleeve within alternatives rather than sitting on the fringe.
Family offices make up the largest LP group showing interest. That fits their longer pattern of backing emerging and innovation-led asset classes. Some remain cautious, but traditional wealth managers are also facing pressure to deliver digital asset exposure to wealthy clients, especially in markets such as Dubai, Switzerland, and Singapore.
Interest persists even as prices and crypto-linked stocks weaken
The appetite has stayed alive during a weak stretch for the market. Bitcoin is down nearly 25% since the start of the year, and its market capitalization has fallen by more than $1 trillion from the all-time high reached in October. Shares of crypto-linked companies such as Coinbase and Strategy have also traded sharply lower this year, lagging most other tech stocks.
Even so, Biscardi said digital asset managers are very close to achieving institutional legitimacy. In his view, bitcoin has already crossed that threshold, while altcoins are nearing it. The missing piece, he said, is a regulatory framework that allows institutions to participate safely.
Regulation remains the main hurdle, while ETFs lead institutional access
For chief investment officers, regulation still sits at the top of the list. Biscardi said large allocators are fiduciaries managing other people’s money, which makes the decision process far stricter. However interesting the category may be, they are unlikely to allocate until they can explain to their boards that the exposure is being taken in a responsible and safe way.
He also said the debate has changed. Back in 2022, some investors still questioned whether crypto was even real or compared it to a Ponzi scheme. He no longer hears that. Some traditionally conservative capital pools have started to participate as well. Endowments, for example, have begun allocating to bitcoin and ether ETFs, not to rebuild portfolios from scratch but to add measured exposure that could help in years when crypto markets perform well.
That said, allocators still view bitcoin much more as a risk asset than as a store of value. Biscardi pointed to its behavior during periods of stress, when it has tended to move more in line with equities than with gold. Direct token purchases also remain uncommon among institutions. The preference is for ETFs and fund structures, with LPs relying on GPs to decide which tokens to own. At the same time, crypto firms are spending more on visibility: BitGo, Galaxy Digital, Ripple, and Blockstream were all top-tier sponsors at this year’s event.