Since spot bitcoin exchange-traded products launched in January 2024, crypto ETPs have moved from a novelty into wealth advisers' SEC-reported portfolios. In holdings reported for 31 March 2026, wealth managers report at least four billion dollars of crypto-ETP positions across roughly 940 registered advisers. Crypto products are now common in the advisory channel. How widespread they are, band by band, is a harder question, and the filings answer it only with care.
Among wealth advisers whose holdings are observable through 13F, adoption is not marginal. Depending on how the population is defined, somewhere between a quarter and a majority of firms in each size band report a crypto ETP, and the share is higher at larger firms. Because the exact rates depend on how the population is defined, we treat the levels as directional and the pattern as the finding.
Adoption is broad, and it rises with size
Among wealth advisers whose holdings appear in 13F, crypto-ETP ownership is common and becomes more so with scale. Restricting the denominator to firms that actually report holdings, roughly a quarter of the smallest observable firms hold a crypto ETP, rising through the size bands to nearly 3 in 5 in the 5-to-25 billion dollar range, and staying high above that. The exact figures depend on methodology choices discussed below, so no single band's number should be read as precise. The pattern holds across every way we have cut it: broad participation, rising with firm size, and already common among mid-sized firms.
| Assets under management | Holders | Reporting holdings | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under $500m | 285 | 1,188 | 24.0% |
| $500m – $1bn | 212 | 641 | 33.1% |
| $1bn – $5bn | 307 | 698 | 44.0% |
| $5bn – $25bn | 104 | 176 | 59.1% |
| $25bn and above | 31 | 67 | 46.3% |
Broad by firm count, concentrated in dollars
Roughly 940 distinct advisers report some crypto-ETP exposure. The dollars are concentrated, with a small number of the largest reporters accounting for a disproportionate share of the total. Many firms are willing to hold these products, and most of the money still sits with a few.
On the size of the number. The four billion dollars is our directly observed estimate of wealth-channel crypto-ETP exposure, not a firm total. Most raw 13F crypto-ETP dollars, roughly 32 billion of a 36 billion total, are reported by firms classified primarily as trading, banking, hedge-fund or institutional entities (Jane Street, Citadel, Goldman Sachs and the like). Those are excluded from the wealth figure, though their reported exposure cannot always be cleanly attributed, since a consolidated group may run both advisory and trading businesses under one filing. Separately, some genuine wealth firms are missed where the entity filing a 13F differs from the one holding the SEC registration; a broader affiliate-matching exercise suggests the wealth total may be closer to five billion once those related entities are folded in.
Sources and method
Source. Holdings are drawn from public SEC Form 13F filings for the quarter ended 31 March 2026, filtered to a defined security universe consisting primarily of US-listed spot bitcoin and ether ETPs. The analysis counts reported long share positions in those products; put and call option positions, which report under the underlying's CUSIP, are excluded. 13F does not report short positions and does not net them against longs, so these figures are reported holdings rather than net exposure. Firms are matched to their SEC registration and classified by type; this note covers the wealth-management channel, which reported at least four billion dollars across some 940 firms.
What counts as a wealth firm. A firm is treated as wealth-channel using its Form ADV Part 1 data: it has individual and high-net-worth individual clients as a meaningful share of its client base, keeps private-fund assets to a minority of regulatory assets, shows an average client relationship size consistent with advisory rather than institutional business, and is a US-registered adviser. This separates advisers serving individuals from hedge funds and institutional managers, which are excluded. The classification was checked against a manual review of a sample of firms across size bands.
Why the rates are a pattern rather than a measurement. These are the hardest figures in the note to pin down, because much of the apparent variation comes from 13F filing behavior rather than adoption. Three choices move them materially. First, whether the denominator is all wealth RIAs or only those that file a 13F: most small firms never file at all, so the former understates smaller bands badly. Second, whether notice-only filers (13F-NT), which report no holdings because a related entity reports for them, are counted as non-holders: they cluster at the very top, and leaving them in wrongly halves the largest band's rate. The figures shown use holdings-reporting firms only, which we consider the most defensible denominator, though the bands could reasonably be constructed differently and would then show different levels. The broad pattern does not change across methods: adoption is widespread and generally increases with firm size, peaking in the mid-market and remaining high, though below that peak, in the largest band.
Further limits. Even among reporting firms, a qualifying position below Form 13F's de minimis level (fewer than 10,000 shares and under 200,000 dollars) may be omitted, so a non-reporting firm cannot always be read as holding nothing. The firm-level measure counts a firm as a holder whether one client account or many hold the position, so it speaks to firm participation, not the depth of exposure across client portfolios.
On double counting. The same economic position can in principle be reported by more than one 13F filer through parent-subsidiary relationships, shared investment discretion and subadviser arrangements. Among the roughly 940 wealth holders we identify, cross-filing of this kind is limited: a small number of firms (on the order of ten) explicitly name another holder in our set as a co-filer. We have not fully normalized for this. The effect on the firm count and the four billion dollar total is minor.
Further scope. 13F captures crypto ETPs only, not direct crypto or exposure inside private funds. Size bands use Form ADV regulatory assets under management; where the ADV reading is not exactly contemporaneous with the March 2026 holdings, small timing differences may apply. Custodian relationships, where referenced, come from a separate ADV data join and reflect a firm's major reported custodians, not proof that a given crypto position is held at that custodian. Data is quarterly and lagged by the standard 45-day filing deadline.
Not advice. For market and distribution-intelligence purposes for professionals in the asset- and wealth-management industry. Not investment, financial, tax or legal advice, and not a recommendation or assessment of any firm. SignalPM is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by the SEC. Figures should be independently confirmed before any business decision.