Digital assets have reached a crucial point on their path to widespread institutional adoption, SIX said.
SIX Swiss Exchange, one of the largest stock exchanges in the world, has published the results of a study carried out to understand the current perception that institutions have towards digital assets and other topics such as ESG strategies, which have gained great interest among investors around the world.
According to the results of the study, institutions appreciate the digital asset sector as an ecosystem that is undergoing rapid evolution and holds immense potential.
Thus, although only a small percentage of institutions participating in the SIX survey said they currently hold digital assets, almost seven out of ten institutions, representing 69% of respondents, indicated that they have plans to include digital assets in their investment portfolios in the next 12 months.
The SIX survey was administered to 300 companies from around the world, including asset managers, hedge funds and asset managers.
Investors want digital assets
Digital assets have become increasingly common among companies across a variety of industries. Through tokenization, any asset can be turned into a digital token, which is accessible and manageable on the blockchain.
So far, the largest investors in digital assets are concentrated in the United States (29%), while interest in this asset class is led by Asia (83%).
A question of trust
Despite the growing interest in digital assets around the world, the institutions participating in the SIX survey also pointed out several needs that need to be met in order to foster investor confidence and accelerate the development and growth of the digital asset sector.
Among these needs, the institutions highlighted the construction of a more effective and secure market infrastructure for digital assets, in addition to achieving important technological advances, such as the improvement of risk management systems and the standardization of smart contracts and other technologies, in order to drive innovation and support the adoption of digital assets.
“It’s all about trust as appetite for digital assets grows.”
According to SIX, ensuring trust in the digital asset sector will be vital to accelerating mass adoption.
Institutions told SIX that they would like to access regulated markets when trading digital assets. The majority of institutions surveyed find it trustworthy to access digital assets for trading and trading from traditional custodians. In fact, 55% of the surveyed companies indicated that they would access the digital asset market if they were traded through a recognised traditional custodian.
Although trust plays a key role in the adoption of digital assets, SIX clarified that this has not been the factor that has slowed or prevented institutional participation in the digital asset sector. According to the exchange, institutions are waiting for experienced financial service providers to be able to offer access to this asset class, while ensuring risk management and providing robustness to the market and investors.
The SIX definition of digital assets used in the study ranges from utility tokens and asset-backed tokens to digital currencies such as cryptocurrencies, CBDCs and stablecoins.
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