Most Wealthy Investors Own Crypto. Fewer Than 5% Have Made It Core

"Once an investor gets past the risk perception stage, what's left is security, fees, and platform user-friendliness and capabilities," Neil Steinhardt, COO of Nexo US, said in the release.

That is the headline finding of "The Future of Digital Wealth 2026," published by the crypto wealth platform on September 23. Steinhardt called those "the same things we've spent years building Nexo to solve," adding: "That's the gap between owning crypto and actually building wealth with it, and it's exactly where our platform is designed to meet investors." The company discloses its commercial interest in crypto adoption alongside the report.

The market backdrop: bitcoin near $82,000 on October 8, down 7.5% this year and about 35% under its October 2025 record above $126,000.

The survey ran in February and March through research platform Attest. The bar to get in: at least $100,000 in liquid assets in the U.S. and U.K., or $40,000 in Argentina, roughly the top 25% to 30% of each market by investable wealth.

Owning it is not the same as using it

The report scores each investor on a new 1-to-10 Crypto Integration Index, built from five equal parts: allocation size, holding horizon, retirement use, substitution for a traditional asset and risk perception.

The numbers behind it: about 67% hold crypto, the average score is 4.83, and just 4.7% score 7 or higher. Nexo describes a 7 as a long-held position that has replaced a traditional asset and sits inside long-term planning.

"In our data, risk perception barely separates investors who've built real wealth with crypto from those who haven't," Kalchev said. What divides them, he said, "is whether they've substituted crypto for a traditional asset and folded it into retirement planning. For affluent investors it's the planning and the smoothness of operating with that crypto that remains to be resolved."

Just under 20% expect crypto to be their number-one wealth driver over the next decade, ahead of salary, equities and real estate.

That is a different problem from the one mass-market educators describe. "People just haven't understood crypto. They don't get it, they don't know what it is, they don't know how it works, they don't know how to buy crypto, they don't know what a digital wallet is," Ali Tager of the National Cryptocurrency Association said on the On The Margin podcast, on what her group's research shows for ordinary Americans.

Top complaints in Nexo's "Structurally Integrated" group: security 36%, fees 34%, platform complexity 28%.

Fees are also how the listed brokers earn. Coinbase @COIN booked $452 million of consumer transaction revenue in the second quarter, against $650 million a year earlier, per its 10-Q.

Security is the first complaint

Michael Tanguma, CEO of bitcoin custody platform Onramp, said in an interview that the tooling has not kept up with the money.

"The market has to level up because the game is changed and how people manage this asset in 2012 is how they do it today, and it fundamentally won't work. And it's very risky if that continues because it's going to push people into ETFs and Coinbase."

On self-custody, he said: "you think anybody can do it. In reality, grandma couldn't do it. And so that's like a message to just, like, slay your heroes, you gotta be thinking for yourself."

"A big part of adoption is people have significant others, and they're freaking out right now," Tanguma said, describing clients who "wanna be able to set up that inheritance and not have to create all the things you probably had to think of."

By age: 28% of 35 to 44 year olds treat crypto as a core retirement asset, the survey peak. Among 18 to 25 year olds, over 90% hold it, 2% with a 10-year-plus horizon.

Three markets, three ladders

• Argentina: highest ownership at 74%, lowest integration score at 4.62. Nexo says crypto came in as a cash substitute against inflation and capital controls.
• U.S.: lowest ownership at 62%, deepest integration at 5.07.
• U.K.: 65% ownership, score of 4.75.

Where the money goes

Fees and custody are now product decisions at the big brokerages. Nexo itself is private. Share moves are year to date through the October 8 close.

• Charles Schwab (SCHW) : Schwab Crypto opened to a first wave of clients in May. 75 basis points per trade, custody at Charles Schwab Premier Bank. Shares down 3% at $96.87.
• Morgan Stanley (MS) : spot crypto trading on E*Trade since July. 50 basis points per trade, custody with Zero Hash. Shares up 5.6% at $187.44.
• Coinbase (COIN) : shares down 24% at $172. Concentration risk, per Tanguma. "There's a single point of failure whether it's Coinbase or yourself," he said.
• Robinhood (HOOD) : crypto revenue $100 million in Q2, down 38% from a year earlier. Shares down 5.4% at $107.01.
• iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) : the wrapper route for investors who skip custody entirely. Down 6.8% at $46.26, in line with bitcoin. BlackRock is already building income products on top of bitcoin ETFs.

The bottom line

"Why would you trust one custodian versus three? It's pretty straightforward. We're just so early. That's why people don't do it yet," Tanguma said.

Nexo's survey covers 1,000 affluent investors and is not representative of the general population. Nothing here is investment advice.