Family offices are warming up to cryptocurrency, driven by bitcoin’s surge, the rise of crypto exchange-traded funds and a more favorable regulatory outlook. As Marcus Baram reports, a Citi Private Bank survey found that 27% of family offices are now investing or planning to, up from just 8% last year.
One striking example is Hong Kong’s Avenir Group, which invested $599 million in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, making it Asia’s largest holder. This signals growing institutional confidence in digital assets and highlights ETFs as a gateway for family offices seeking exposure without direct ownership. Experts note that crypto is becoming a key part of diversified portfolios, typically making up 1% to 5% of total assets.
Meanwhile, as Bloomberg reports, President Trump’s executive order establishing a U.S. strategic bitcoin reserve has stirred market reactions. While the move affirms the government’s long-term commitment to crypto, investors had anticipated direct purchases, which did not materialize. Despite some volatility, institutional adoption continues to expand, making it clear that family offices are no longer on the sidelines.
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HANDPICKED: Despite volatility, more family offices confident about crypto
By MARCUS BARAM
Family offices have traditionally been cautious about buying cryptocurrency. But recent developments — such as bitcoin’s surge last year, the Trump administration’s support of the industry, the rise of crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the growth of tokenized assets — have made the market more appealing to high-net-worth families.
About 27% of family offices in a recent Citi Private Bank survey said they had already invested or planned to invest in digital assets — a turnaround from 2023, when only 8% were bullish on crypto. At the time, net sentiment for the sector was the most negative compared with all other assets.
Overall, the crypto market is expected to exceed $4 trillion this year.
Most recently, the Avenir Group, a Hong Kong-based family office, invested $599 million in the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF, signaling growing institutional interest in digital assets. The move made Avenir Asia’s largest holder of bitcoin ETFs and highlighted Hong Kong’s plans to waive taxes on investment gains from cryptocurrencies for certain institutional investors.
It also illustrates how ETFs have become an increasingly attractive way for once-wary family offices to gain exposure to bitcoin without having to directly own the cryptocurrency.
“We are optimistic about the long-term prospects of bitcoin and other crypto assets,” said Jason Lan, CEO of Avenir Crypto Business. “As the U.S. enters a rate-cutting cycle and regulatory frameworks become clearer, it is expected that mainstream institutions will increase their presence in the crypto asset space, attracting more investors to enter the market quickly and share the benefits of its growth.”
Bitcoin recently surpassed the long-awaited $100,000 benchmark before retreating in recent weeks, partly fueled by Trump’s pro-crypto sentiment. Soon after taking office, he signed an executive order promoting cryptocurrency in the U.S., including a proposal to establish a national digital asset stockpile.
“We’ve come a long way,” said Kristen Mirabella, head of partnerships at Eaglebrook Advisors, a crypto investment platform. “Everyone was so afraid to touch crypto after FTX,” she said, referring to the crypto exchange that went bankrupt in November 2022.
“We’re definitely seeing more interest in the space from family offices,” Mirabella said, though she acknowledges that volatility remains a concern, “especially for the family that’s thinking about long-term investment.”
‘Beyond bitcoin and ethereum’
The rise of regulated platforms and ETFs has lent some stability to the sector, making crypto an increasingly common component of family offices’ diversified portfolios — usually comprising 1% to 5% of total assets, Mirabella said. Crypto separately managed accounts (SMAs) — portfolios of digital assets actively managed by professional investment managers — also offer benefits, such as automated tax-loss harvesting and institutional-grade storage solutions, she said.
“This is the first time that family offices have reached out to me instead of me seeking them out,” said Ben Wiener, founder of Benaiah Capital, a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, investment firm focused on digital assets. Wiener said that in the past, “I’d leave a meeting, and they’d say: ‘That guy’s crazy. Can you imagine investing in cryptocurrency?’ ”
Now, family offices are beginning to see real opportunities in the sector, particularly as equities become overinflated, Wiener said. The White House’s support for crypto, he said, has been a significant factor, “giving a green light to the industry — beyond just bitcoin and ethereum.”
The recent proposal to include smaller coins like cardano and solana in the crypto strategic reserve suggests that investors are becoming more receptive to newer cryptocurrencies. “There’s an idea that investors might have missed the boat on bitcoin and ethereum, but this could be their chance,” Wiener said. Even though bitcoin is a “tremendous asset,” he believes several other cryptocurrencies will significantly outperform it.
Understanding how it works
For investors who are experienced in researching equities but may feel intimidated by the crypto sector, education is key. “It’s about trying to get people to understand what it is, how it works and who the people behind it are,” Mirabella said.
She advises investors to analyze the top 25 cryptocurrencies by market cap and evaluate them as they would a portfolio of stocks. “What blockchain are they building on? What does that blockchain do? Maybe it’s for speed. Maybe it’s for storage of other documents. Maybe it’s for bringing real-world assets onto the chain,” Mirabella said.
By doing this analysis, she said, “you can feel better about what you’re including in your portfolio.”
Typically, next-generation members of family offices have been the first to invest in crypto, Mirabella said. But as the sector gains mainstream acceptance, even older family members are taking an interest.
“I think it means that they understand it’s not going away and that it could have real value, especially as the next generation is going to inherit the portfolio,” she said.
Along with the surge in crypto, interest is growing in blockchain’s evolving role in finance. More family offices — such as the Cooper Family Office in Boca Raton, Florida; and Lightning Capital in Sag Harbor, New York — are investing in early- and late-stage companies involved in decentralized finance (DeFi).
Lightning’s CEO, Jason Albanese, said the firm’s venture fund is focused on “teams that are solving critical challenges in digital-asset technology and infrastructure. The companies must be institutionalizing and/or improving the [user experience] of the digital-asset ecosystem.”
As stewards of intergenerational wealth, Albanese said, “the strategic inclusion of digital assets is not just an acknowledgment of their growth potential but a proactive step in building a resilient portfolio capable of withstanding the vicissitudes of the economic landscape.”
Bitcoin reserve disappoints market, weighs on crypto
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
A simmering tension in the crypto industry resurfaced after President Donald Trump signed a long-awaited order creating a strategic bitcoin reserve and an additional stockpile of other digital assets.
Even as crypto executives issued effusive social media posts praising the move, bitcoin fell as much as 5.7%. The largest digital asset later pared losses to about 1%, trading at $89,410 as of 8:10 a.m. Friday in New York.
Four other digital tokens that had previously been highlighted by Trump — ether, XRP, cardano and solana — also saw declines.
“While this wasn’t the outright bullish catalyst many were hoping for, it remains structurally positive for crypto,” said QCP Capital in a note. “The prospect of random Silk Road BTC sales disrupting the market is now behind us, and the U.S. government’s commitment to a long-term crypto strategy has been reaffirmed.”
While the creation of the bitcoin-specific reserve fulfills a promise Trump made on the campaign trail, the details fell short of industry expectations.
The order, shared initially as a post on X by White House crypto czar David Sacks, indicated that the government wouldn’t use taxpayer money to fund a strategic reserve of the largest digital asset.
Instead, the reserve would be capitalized with bitcoin already owned by the federal government. Any further acquisitions would require “budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies impose no incremental costs on American taxpayers,” the order said.
Nor will the U.S. sell bitcoin deposited into the reserve, according to the order.
Stefan von Haenisch, director of over-the-counter trading in the Asia-Pacific region for the crypto custody firm Bitgo Inc., said the potential lack of new buying was weighing on the market.
“Previously, investors were jumping into the market in anticipation of the government buying bitcoin,” he said. “With this latest development, these positions are being unwound.”
The stipulations around the nonbitcoin stockpile were even more stringent.
According to the order, the government would not acquire additional crypto assets for the stockpile “beyond those obtained through forfeiture proceedings.”
Washington crypto gathering
And unlike the requirement not to sell any bitcoin, the order explicitly noted that the Treasury “may determine strategies for responsible stewardship, including potential sales” from the stockpile.
The U.S. currently owns about $16.4 billion worth of Bitcoin and about $400 million worth of seven other tokens, largely attributable to asset forfeitures related to civil and criminal cases.
The order comes just ahead of a gathering of crypto executives in Washington. Some two dozen representatives of companies including Coinbase Global Inc. and Robinhood Markets Inc. are heading to the White House to meet with Trump and Sacks.
“The significance of this executive order is mainly symbolic, as it marks the first time bitcoin is formally recognized as a reserve asset of the United States government,” said Andrew O’Neill, managing director of digital assets at S&P Global Ratings.
Diverging fortunes
Trump’s campaign pledge to create a strategic bitcoin reserve was one of many promises designed to appeal to an industry that has emerged as source of significant political donations.
That pledge — in addition to his promise to fire Gary Gensler from his then-role as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — helped fuel a run-up in token prices leading up to his inauguration.
But sentiment in the market turned negative in February as investors reacted to news about tariffs, a $1.5 billion crypto hack and outflows from digital-asset ETFs.
Then, Trump sparked an intense but short-lived rally over the weekend when he said on Truth Social that solana (SOL), cardano (ADA) and XRP would be included in the government’s plans alongside bitcoin and ether.
Bitcoin proponents reacted with dismay to the social media announcement at the time, criticizing the merits of the other, less established tokens.
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