None of the 15 institutions interviewed by asset manager Bitwise reduced their crypto allocations during a roughly 50% market drawdown, and several added to positions instead. According to Cointelegraph, the findings come from Bitwise’s Institutional Crypto Adoption Report, based on interviews conducted in late March and April during a market decline that began in October 2025. The group included investment professionals at endowments, foundations, public pensions, sovereign wealth funds, multi-family offices, investment consultants and public companies. Crypto allocations among institutions with exposure ranged from 0.5% to 13% of investable assets, although most were between 1% and 2%. Bitwise said almost every institution interviewed either used spot crypto exchange-traded funds or planned to, with some shifting from private placements or direct custody toward ETFs.

Every institution in the group that owned crypto held Bitcoin (BTC), and it was usually their largest and longest-held position. For most of the Bitcoin holders, BTC was their first, largest and longest-held crypto asset, and many viewed it as a store of value alongside gold. Conviction in Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) was less consistent, with both assets treated as smaller bets and subject to shorter investment horizons and conditions for selling. When asked what could prompt a sale, none of the institutions cited falling prices. Instead, respondents pointed to a regulatory reversal, an industry-wide credibility crisis or a failure of their investment thesis. Several said they could sell ETH or SOL over the next few years if growth in areas such as stablecoins, decentralized finance and tokenization did not translate into value accruing to the tokens themselves. One institution that held neither Ether nor Solana said it had used DeFi applications extensively but saw no clear way that activity would benefit the underlying tokens.