UK Advisors Blind to 52% of Client Crypto, Survey Says — Firm Policy the Culprit 👀

More than half of UK wealth advisors say they cannot see most of their clients' crypto holdings, and the obstacle is firm policy rather than investor demand or advisor expertise, according to a new CoinShares survey of 261 wealth professionals across France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the UK. Some 52% of British advisors report a management gap above 50%, defined as the share of a client's digital-asset exposure that sits outside the advisory relationship, often on personal exchanges or in self-custody wallets. Across Europe, roughly one in four advisors faces the same blind spot.

The survey ties the gap to internal restrictions. About 61% of advisors work at firms that restrict digital assets or offer no internal guidance on them. In those firms, active recommendation of crypto falls to 1%, compared with 48% at firms with clear support, while the management gap widens from 4% to 34%. CoinShares calculates that unmanaged exposure is 8.5 times larger in restricted firms, a pattern it labels wrong-way risk. More than three-quarters of advisors who describe themselves as under-informed also work at restricted firms, suggesting training follows policy rather than the reverse.

"This is not a knowledge problem. It is not a demand problem. It is a firm-policy problem becoming a wrong-way risk," Jean-Marie Mognetti, CoinShares co-founder and CEO, said in the report. When asked what would raise their confidence, advisors ranked regulatory recognition of digital assets as a mainstream asset class first at 45%, followed by access to exchange-traded products (ETPs) at 43%, with client-facing educational tools last at 9%. CoinShares commissioned the poll through Citywire; the firm is itself a Nasdaq-listed issuer of crypto ETPs, the access channel advisors ranked second.

Regulatory shifts in Britain and the European Union could narrow the gap. The Financial Conduct Authority banned retail sales of crypto exchange-traded notes in January 2021, then reopened retail crypto ETN access in October 2025, and has since proposed letting authorized funds hold up to 10% in those products. On the continent, the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) transition ends on July 1, creating a single European market for regulated crypto products, while France's AMF has opened a review of which assets qualify for UCITS funds. Digital assets still account for a sliver of Europe's roughly €15 trillion regulated fund universe, a gap CoinShares argues is increasingly hard for restricted advisors to defend.