Around 22% of institutional investors already have some exposure to digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies, according to new research from Fidelity Investments.
 
The data also reveals that 40% say they will include them in their portfolios in the next five years. Of those that have exposure, most investments were made in the last three years.
 
“Aimed to gain an understanding of how institutions, financial advisors and investors perceive digital assets generally and as part of an investment portfolio, the survey also found that over half (57%) prefer to invest in digital assets directly, while 72% favour investment products that hold digital assets. 57% said they’d prefer to buy investment products that hold digital asset firms,” reported Coindesk on Thursday.
 
The investment giant said it surveyed more than 400 U.S. institutional investors, including pensions, family offices, crypto and traditional hedge funds and financial advisors, as well as endowments and foundations.
 
“We’ve seen a maturation of interest in digital assets from early adopters, like crypto hedge funds, to traditional institutional investors like family offices and endowments,” said Tom Jessop, president of Fidelity Digital AssetsSM, a provider of institutional custody and trading services for digital assets.
 
At the beginning of this year, deVere CEO Nigel Green was quoted in the media as saying that it can be expected that we will see a considerable expansion of the crypto sector largely due to inflows of institutional investors.
 
“Major corporations, financial institutions, governments and their agencies, prestigious universities, and household-name investing legends are all going to bring their institutional capital and institutional expertise to the crypto market,” he noted.
 
“The direction of travel has already been on this path, but there is a growing sense that institutional investors are preparing to move off the sidelines in 2019. The acceleration of institutional investment is likely to be driven by greater regulatory clarity.”