📈 Financial Advisors Are Turning Bullish on Crypto in 2026
The survey results are in, and –
Financial advisors are turning up their crypto recommendations to new ATHs.
📌 What Happened
New survey data shows financial advisors are allocating to crypto at the highest levels ever recorded.
This is a meaningful shift in how this particular cohort has viewed digital assets and are now allocating inside their traditional client portfolios.
Key takeaways from the data:
- 32% of advisors reported allocating to crypto in client accounts over the past year, up from 22% in 2024 (an all-time high for the survey)
- 56% of advisors now personally own crypto, the highest level of advisor ownership since the survey began in 2018
- Among client portfolios with crypto exposure, 64% now allocate more than 2% to crypto, up sharply from 51% last year
- 42% of advisors said they now have institutional access to buy crypto for clients, up from 35% in 2024 and just 19% in 2023
- When asked what themes excite them most, stablecoins and tokenization led interest at 30%, followed by “digital gold / fiat debasement” (22%) and crypto-linked AI investments (19%)
Financial advisors are finally embracing crypto—and they’re jumping in with both feet.
🗣️ What They’re Saying
“1% allocation to $BITB across clients. Email from a large wealth team at a major US Bank. Mainstream investors are coming into this asset class —” – Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise
🧠 Why It Matters
This is what real investment adoption looks like.
For the past few years, crypto’s institutional story revolved around hedge funds, DATs, and ETFs.
But financial advisors are arguably the most important distribution channel of all as they sit between markets and millions of end investors.
The data points to three big implications for 2026:
- First, crypto is increasingly being treated as a core portfolio asset. Allocations above 2% are becoming the norm where crypto is present, signaling longer-term positioning.
- Second, access is compounding adoption. As more advisors gain the ability to buy crypto through compliant, institutional rails, allocations naturally follow. The jump from 19% access in 2023 to 42% today is a significant and telling shift.
- Third, the narratives are maturing. Advisors are gravitating toward stablecoins, tokenization, and macro use cases.
There’s an analogy that wealth advisors don’t move like speed boats but more like cruise ships or oil tankers. They’re slow and methodical, but once they turn in a direction – they’re very hard to stop and they tend to keep going.
That’s why this tipping point matters so much.
Once financial advisors start pitching crypto to their clients—they will most likely continue to do so. And add, and increase portfolio allocations.
This is the infinite twap. And this is the wave (or tsunami) of buy pressure that will eventually overtake the Bitcoin and broader crypto sellers.
It’s just a matter of time…
🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets
A few headlines that stood out:
- Crypto majors are very green with Bitcoin making a new 2-month high; BTC +3% at $95,100; ETH +5% at $3,300, SOL +2% at $145; XRP +3% to $2.12
- IP (+22%) , DASH (+22%), ICP (+16%) and PUMP (+13%) led top movers; XMR hit another new ATH at $715
- Visa is partnering with stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK to integrate stablecoin pre-funding and direct payouts into its Visa Direct real-time payments platform
- Coingecko is considering a sale for $500M, tapping Moelis & Company to help them explore options
- A draft provision in the Clarity Act would grant XRP, Solana, Dogecoin and others the same non-security status as Bitcoin and ETH (along with all ETF assets)
- Galaxy Research warned that the new draft Clarity Bill will give the Treasury too much surveillance power
- Bipartisan legislators introduced a bill to clarify when crypto developers and infrastructure providers are treated as money transmitters under federal law
- Wintermute reported that OTC crypto liquidity is concentrated in BTC and ETH, with broader altcoin rallies fading in 2025
- Polygon announced its Open Money Stack, becoming a regulated US payments platform after its Coinme and Sequence acquisitions
In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs
- The BTC ETFs saw $753.8M in net inflows on Monday, the highest day since Oct 10; ETH ETFs saw $150M in net inflows
- SharpLink shared plans to expand in 2026 after amassing nearly $3B of ETH and staking $170M on Linea, ultimately targeting 5% of ETH supply
- A newly formed Kraken-linked SPAC filed for a $250M U.S. public offering
- Semler Scientific shareholders approved a merger with Vivek’s Strive Inc. in an all stock deal
In Memes / Onchain Movers
- Meme majors were mostly green with some posting 5-10% gains; Doge +5%, Shiba +1%, PEPE +10%, TRUMP +3%, Bonk +7%, Pengu +6%, SPX +3%, WIF +9% and Fartcoin +9%
- Ralph (+57%), 1 (+39%), 67 (+20%) and Buttcoin (+30%) led notable onchain movers
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
- Fogo launched its token airdrop claim page ahead of Thursday’s TGE
- The ETHGas Foundation introduced its GWEI token and announced a snapshot for Jan 19
- Binance announced that Aster will power perps in its Binance Wallet, with Aster points incentives and a $200k prize pool
- Yzi Labs made an 8-figure investment in Genius Trading, a privacy-focused platform aiming to build an onchain Binance, with CZ joining on as an advisor
- Backpack announced a new prediction market with a cross margin feature
- Rekt Drinks sold out its World Star Cherry Cola in less than a day
🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
- NFT leaders were mostly flat on the day; Punks even at 29.2 ETH, Pudgy even at 5.13 ETH, and BAYC +4% at 5.88 ETH; Hypurr -1% 508 HYPE
- Chimpers (+14%) and Good Vibes (+8%) led notable top movers
- Token Works announced that anyone can now create an ERC20 strategy token