Plummeting 50% and still dead? 15 institutions reveal the underlying logic of not selling Bitcoin

According to Woofun AI, Bitwise's in-depth interviews with 15 large investors revealed a counterintuitive phenomenon: after experiencing severe market shocks, these institutions not only refused to sell Bitcoin, but also partially increased their holdings.

The time window for this survey was fixed from October 2025 to April 2026, during which time the overall market declined by about 50%. Bitwise completed interviews with respondents between the end of March and April 2026, and has managed more than $9 billion in customer assets. The lineup of respondents covered university endowments, pension funds, state-owned investment funds, family offices and listed companies, with assets ranging from hundreds of millions of dollars to tens of billions of dollars.

Notably, all institutions participating in the survey held Bitcoin, and none saw the price drop as a reason to exit. According to data compiled by Woofun AI, the cryptocurrency allocation ratio of these institutions is extremely low, between 0.5% and 13% of investable assets, and most of them are concentrated in the 1% to 2% range. Many respondents experienced a similar 50% drop in 2022 and held on, indicating that their investment logic has moved beyond short-term price fluctuations.

In terms of asset preferences, Bitcoin is widely regarded as a value storage tool similar to gold, while Ethereum and (apparently unnamed here; suspected to be an altcoin such as Solana) are favored by only a few institutions. The reason is that if the latter cannot be widely used in the real world in the next few years, its value faces downside risks. According to an investment advisor, the current sell-off is premature, based on the S-curve that technology adoption follows. Almost all of the respondents are using or planning to use a spot Bitcoin ETF.

However, public data shows a divergent trend: Harvard University revealed in the 13F report that its endowment fund cut its Bitcoin ETF positions by 43% in the first quarter of 2026; in contrast, two state-owned investment funds in Abu Dhabi still held the full amount of shares during the price drop in the second quarter (the original text appears to be missing here; it is suspected to be a Bitcoin ETF). At the time of reporting, Bitcoin was trading at around $84,534.

Bitwise believes that since some investors use a non-public disclosure structure, the actual size of institutional holdings may be undervalued. Currently, the core factors preventing institutions from further increasing their holdings are governance structures, operating conditions, and reputation issues. Looking ahead to the next five years, Bitwise expects most institutions to continue to hold cryptocurrencies, a position that reflects its firm optimism about the nature of a long-term store of value.