Eighty-four per cent of professional investors believe digital assets will become mainstream, according to t0 Nickel Digital Asset Management.

The survey of 200 institutional investors and wealth managers from across seven countries who collectively manage around USD 329bn in assets found that just 3 per cent do not agree that digital assets will become mainstream and 13 per cent claim that it is too early to say.

In addition, it found that 81 per cent believe that digital assets – in particular DeFi protocols - are emerging as an important disruptive technology for traditional finance. Some 56 per cent strongly agree with this view.

When asked for their main overarching view on blockchain and digital asset technology, 41 per cent of professional investors said it is scalable and, on the way, to achieving mainstream adoption, while 21 per cent said it bears strong transformative potential for the global economy.

By contrast, just 30 per cent believe digital assets will remain a niche technology although there is a compelling business case for it and only 9 per cent believe there is little practical value in the sector and the technology will ‘die out’.

In terms of the role professional investors expect digital assets to play in the future, the main one is diversification of investment portfolios – the view of 53 per cent of those surveyed. This is followed by 51 per cent who said tokenization of traditional assets, 49 per cent who cited access to DeFi platforms, and 38 per cent who highlighted its ability to provide a new value transfer mechanism.

Commenting, Nickel Digital CEO and founding partner, Anatoly Crachilov, said: “To a great extent, digital assets have already achieved ’escape velocity’ – they have achieved a multi-trillion dollar market cap, and there is gradual regulatory acceptance of them in key countries. This is clearly reflected in our research findings which show that the overwhelming majority of professional investors believe digital assets will be mainstream.”

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