Key Insights:
- In the latest crypto news, 60% of investors now prefer regulated vehicles like ETFs rather than holding tokens directly.
- 35% of institutions viewed cryptocurrency as its own asset class in 2023, compared to today’s 44%.
- 84% of investors already use or plan to use stablecoins, primarily for yield generation (73%), FX settlement (69%), and transactional convenience (71%).
In the latest crypto news, 2025 marked a transformation point for crypto institutional adoption. Earlier on, hedge funds and high-net-worth investors considered cryptocurrencies as a speculative asset but the space has matured to involve deliberate and strategic allocations.
According to the EY–Coinbase Institutional Investor Digital Assets Survey (Jan 2025), 86% of global institutional investors already have or plan to gain exposure to digital assets this year. That number alone signals the changing face of mainstream crypto across capital markets.
Read on to discover how crypto institutional adoption has transitioned from experimenting with the blockchain to embedding it within balance-sheet policy.
Crypto News: ETFs Gaining Institutional Attention
Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded products (ETPs) have become the preferred entry point for institutions since 2024, when the first ETF got approval. EY’s research shows 60% of investors now prefer regulated vehicles like ETFs rather than holding tokens directly.
This crypto news change coincides with the remarkable success of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which reached nearly $100 billion in assets under management by Q3 2025 (source: Bloomberg, Oct 2025).
Annual inflows across crypto ETFs total $6.96 billion, according to data compiled by CoinShares (Sept 2025)
The ETF framework gives institutions the comfort of compliant crypto assets and the safety of guaranteed liquidity.
As one portfolio manager at a U.S. pension fund told EY researchers, “ETFs are the bridge between traditional risk governance and digital opportunity.”
Meanwhile, teams of custodians, auditors, and market makers are racing to expand infrastructure behind the scenes.
This deeper operational layer represents a new phase of crypto institutional adoption, where regulatory alignment and fiduciary responsibility coexist.
Corporate Treasuries Join the Capital Rotation
Corporations are now working in parallel with ETFs to shape their treasury management strategies by incorporating crypto assets.
MicroStrategy set the tone in this space with its total bitcoin holdings surpassing 240,000 BTC worth roughly $17 billion in October 2025 (company filings, Oct 2025).
Other listed firms, including Tesla, Block, and Marathon Digital, have resumed on-balance-sheet digital-asset positions following clearer tax guidance in the U.S. Treasury’s April 2025 memorandum on digital-asset accounting.
This shift signals a new thesis where crypto reserves are not considered as speculative insurance but as a model for balance-sheet diversification.
The EY–Coinbase survey shows only 35% of institutions viewed cryptocurrency as its own asset class in 2023, compared to today’s 44%.
24% of Institutions Now Engage With DeFi
One of the most striking crypto news findings in EY’s 2025 data is how decentralized finance (DeFi) is moving from experimental to executable.
Only 24% of institutions engaged with DeFi protocols in 2024, and estimates project that figure to triple to 75% by 2026.
Most early adopters are U.S. hedge funds and family offices exploring staking, derivatives, and on-chain lending. EY’s data shows 40% are drawn to DeFi derivatives, 38% to staking, and 34% to lending use-cases.
The President’s Working Group on Digital Assets and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new DeFi compliance framework (July 2025) have provided the legal scaffolding institutions needed.
Thanks to this move, compliance departments can now map DeFi exposure to audited smart-contract protocols.
This new bar has now empowered a second layer of crypto institutional adoption centered on yield generation and liquidity efficiency.
84% of Institutional Crypto Investors Focus on Stablecoins
Perhaps the least flashy but most transformative development in 2025 is the rise of institutional stablecoin usage.
EY’s survey found that 84% of investors already use or plan to use stablecoins, primarily for yield generation (73%), FX settlement (69%), and transactional convenience (71%).
Hedge funds lead the adoption of stablecoins with approximately 70% reporting active usage, a figure that is nearly double the average of other firm types.
This mirrors global trends as per Circle’s Q2 2025 transparency report, which discovered institutional wallets account for over 65% of USDC transaction volume, with daily settlement exceeding $18 billion across trading desks.
Furthermore, the U.S. Treasury’s Stablecoin Oversight Act (April 2025) introduced full-reserve mandates and federal registration.
As such, the asset class finally carries the regulatory certainty to appease the demands of large institutions. That, in turn, is deepening crypto institutional adoption within cash-management and payments infrastructure.
57% of Crypto Institutions Invest in Tokenized Assets
As per insights on the EY–Coinbase study, 57% of institutions are interested in investing in tokenized assets, while 72% of those plan to do so by 2026.
The most popular categories include Alternative funds (47%), Commodities (44%), and Equities (42%).
For asset managers, tokenization means efficiency. Take, for instance, the convenience that comes with fractional ownership, instant settlement, and lower administrative costs.
Among firms already exploring the space, 40% of asset managers expressed strong interest in tokenizing their own products, citing instant settlement (54%) and liquidity (51%) as leading motivators.
Global banks are already responding with JPMorgan’s Onyx platform expanding tokenized U.S. Treasury settlements to $1.1 trillion cumulative volume by September 2025 (source: JPM Onyx press release, Sept 2025).
Similarly, Franklin Templeton’s OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund crossed $500 million in tokenized assets this summer (Franklin Templeton report, Aug 2025).
52% of Institutional Investors View Regulatory Clarity As The Main Growth Driver
EY’s 2025 data shows 52% of institutional investors cite regulatory uncertainty as their top concern, but also 57% view greater regulatory clarity as the biggest growth driver.
Since President Trump’s Executive Order on Digital Asset Competitiveness (February 2025), the U.S. policy stance has shifted from defensive to directive. T
The order’s commitment to making the U.S. “the crypto capital of the world” has been echoed by Treasury guidance on custody and taxation, and by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s revised classification of digital assets (June 2025).
This commitment has clarified which tokens fall under commodity jurisdiction.
Implementing the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation in Europe has also provided a standardized compliance framework around stablecoins and exchange licensing.
For this reason, institutional adoption rose by 11 percentage points year-on-year in the EU, according to EY’s regional breakdown.
The question for 2026 isn’t whether institutional adoption will continue to shape the cryptocurrency space but how these assets will integrate with traditional finance.