The Silent Portfolio: A Quarter of European Wealth Managers Cannot See the Majority of Their Clients’ Digital Assets
New CoinShares survey of 261 advisers across five markets finds that firm policy, not knowledge or client demand, determines whether crypto exposure is managed, or invisible
JERSEY, Channel Islands — June 25 2026 — CoinShares PLC (Nasdaq: CSHR) (“CoinShares” or the “Company”), a leading global asset manager specialising in digital assets, today published the findings of a 2026 survey of 261 European wealth management professionals, conducted through Citywire Engage. The survey covers five markets: France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and reaches a single, structural conclusion: clients are already invested in digital assets, and for a large share of advisers, the majority of that exposure sits entirely outside their view.
The survey calls this the management gap: the share of a client’s digital asset exposure that sits outside the adviser’s oversight, unmonitored and invisible to the advisory relationship. One in four European advisers (25%) report a management gap above 50%: meaning the larger part of what their clients hold in digital assets is invisible to the person paid to manage it. In the United Kingdom, that figure reaches 52%.
This is not a forecast about future demand. It describes what already sits inside client portfolios today.
The conversation closes the gap; its absence widens it
The pattern holds without exception across all five adviser postures and all five markets: the less an adviser engages, the larger the gap. Among advisers who actively recommend digital assets, almost one in ten report a management gap above 50%, i.e. more than half of what the client holds in crypto is invisible to the adviser. Among advisers who feel insufficiently informed to advise, it is two in five: more than four times higher. Where the conversation happens, exposure converts into managed allocation. Where it cannot, clients act alone, on exchanges and self-custody platforms their adviser has never seen.
Eight percent of all advisers surveyed describe the problem in its most acute form: they report rising client interest and unmanaged exposure above 50% at the same time. These clients are already invested, outside the adviser’s sight, and their positions are growing.
Firm policy is the cause, not knowledge, not appetite
The survey’s central finding is that the management gap has one primary driver: firm policy. Sixty-one percent of advisers work in firms that either explicitly restrict digital assets or provide no clear internal guidance, what the report calls “blocked firms.” This single variable shapes everything that follows.
Across the four policy levels measured, active recommendation falls from 48% in firms with clear support to 1% in firms that explicitly restrict. The management gap moves in the opposite direction over the same range: from 4% to 34%. Advisers in firms that support digital asset engagement are 4.5 times more likely to recommend than those in blocked firms, and the gap is 8.5 times larger in restricted firms than in supported ones. Engagement intent and client demand are consistent across every policy environment. What differs is whether the adviser is permitted to act.
The knowledge gap follows the institutional one rather than causing it: more than three quarters of advisers who feel insufficiently informed work in blocked firms: advisers who were never trained because their firm never positioned itself to train them.
Jean-Marie Mognetti, Co-Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of CoinShares, said:
“The data is uncomfortable, so let us state it plainly. Across Europe, one in four wealth managers cannot see the majority of their clients’ digital assets. In the UK, it is more than one in two. The capital has already been allocated. The people entrusted with managing it simply cannot see it, and in most cases not because clients are unwilling to engage, but because firm policy prevents them from doing so.
This is not a knowledge problem. It is not a demand problem. It is a firm-policy problem becoming a wrong-way risk.
Clients did not wait for permission. Every month a firm remains silent, more of its clients’ wealth migrates beyond its advice, its visibility and ultimately its economics. The advisers who move first will not simply be adding another product to their platform. They will be rebuilding visibility over their clients’ wealth.
Because visibility comes before advice. You cannot allocate, manage risk or earn trust over assets you cannot see. The firms that recognise this earliest will not just capture a new asset class, they will preserve the advisory relationship at the centre of their business at the dawn of the biggest generational wealth transfer in history.”
What advisers say would change it: recognition and access, not education
Asked directly what would most increase their confidence to recommend digital assets, advisers were clear. The two leading catalysts by a wide margin are regulatory recognition of digital assets as a mainstream asset class (45%) and access to exchange-traded products (ETPs) (43%). Together they account for the overwhelming majority of all catalyst selections. Client-facing educational tools rank joint last (9%), chosen least even by advisers who describe themselves as uninformed.
The signal is unambiguous: the constraint is structural, not individual. Both leading catalysts are conditions an adviser cannot create alone: they depend on regulators and product issuers. And for the first time, both are arriving. The MiCA transition closes on 1 July 2026, establishing a single regulated European market. In France, the AMF has opened a review of which assets may qualify for UCITS funds: the gate any crypto ETP must pass to reach an assurance-vie wrapper or OPCVM mandate. In the United Kingdom, the FCA has proposed allowing authorised funds to hold up to 10% in crypto ETPs. Digital assets remain a negligible share of Europe’s ~€15tn regulated retail fund market, the gap between that near-zero starting point and growing investor demand is the opportunity.
When advisers can engage, the gap nearly disappears
The survey points to what professional management restores. When advisers select an issuer, expertise and track record is the decisive criterion, cited by 73%, more than twice the weight of competitive fees, and ETPs are the preferred vehicle across all five markets. These are the same regulated, transparent, oversight-ready structures that allow volatility to be sized and monitored, and allow a digital asset position to be integrated into a client’s wider financial plan, rather than left unmanaged on a personal exchange account.
It is the environment in which CoinShares has operated since 2013: a regulated asset manager with a long-track-record European ETP range, built for advisers and institutions who need digital asset exposure to sit inside the same professional framework as the rest of a client’s portfolio. As recognition moves from proposal to rule over the next twelve to twenty-four months, the survey suggests the constraint will shift from permission to execution and the firms that take a position will see the gap narrow behind them.
About the survey
The findings draw on a structured questionnaire administered to 261 qualified wealth management professionals across France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom in Q1 2026, commissioned by CoinShares and conducted through Citywire. All respondents are verified members of the Citywire Engage professional panel, with direct or indirect responsibility for client investment decisions — including financial advisers, discretionary investment managers, fund selectors, private bankers, family office professionals and investment consultants. The survey was administered online in each respondent’s primary working language, using professionally translated questionnaires, and all responses were quality-filtered by Citywire before delivery. The full report is available at https://coinshares.com/insights/european-advisors-survey/
About CoinShares
CoinShares is a leading global asset manager specialising in digital assets, that delivers a broad range of financial services across investment management, trading and securities to a wide array of clients that includes corporations, financial institutions and individuals. Focusing on crypto since 2013, the firm is headquartered in Jersey, with offices in France, Switzerland, the UK and the US. CoinShares is regulated in Jersey by the Jersey Financial Services Commission, in France by the Autorité des marchés financiers, and in the US by the Securities and Exchange Commission, National Futures Association and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. CoinShares is publicly listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker CSHR. For more information on CoinShares, please visit:
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Press Contact
CoinShares
Benoît Pellevoizin
bpellevoizin@coinshares.com
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