83% of Institutional Investors Plan to Increase Crypto Allocations in 2025: Coinbase

Institutions are optimistic about crypto's future, with 83% of investors planning to increase crypto allocations in 2025, according to a joint survey by Coinbase and EY-Parthenon in January 2025.

Increased investor interest is mainly driven by greater regulatory clarity. Almost 68% of institutional investors cite greater regulatory clarity as the next catalyst for growth. Investors are confident in the prospects for stablecoins, DeFi, and tokenization.

“Notably, a significant majority of surveyed investors plan to allocate more than 5% of their AUM to crypto in 2025, a clear sign that it is moving beyond a niche asset class”, Coinbase said in a blog post.

Cryptocurrencies not only represent an opportunity to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns but also have broad use cases. For instance, 84% of surveyed investors either use stablecoins or are interested in using them.

Stablecoins have various uses, such as generating yield, foreign exchange, internal cash management, and external payments.

Around 73% of investors hold crypto beyond BTC and ETH, with XRP and SOL being two of the most commonly held altcoins.

While only 24% of investors are currently engaged in DeFi, that figure is expected to grow to 75% in the next two years.

“Institutions are attracted to DeFi for myriad reasons, citing derivatives, staking, and lending as the use cases they are most interested in, followed closely by access to altcoins, cross border settlements, and yield farming,” noted Coinbase.