Clients Are Asking About Digital Assets. Most Firms Still Can’t Respond.

Seventy percent of U.S. financial advisors say clients are asking about digital assets. Fewer than thirty percent say their firms are operationally prepared to support those conversations.

Those figures come from recent Cerulli research, and they matter more than any single price chart or regulatory headline. They suggest that the constraint on adoption is no longer awareness or interest. It is capacity.

Client demand is present. What is missing, in many cases, is the internal ability to respond in a way that is consistent, defensible, and repeatable.

Digital assets do not stall because markets are not ready. They stall because institutions are still deciding how, and where, they fit.

DEMAND IS NOT THE PROBLEM INSTITUTIONS ARE SOLVING

Demand is easy to observe. Advisors hear it directly. Client conversations make it obvious. What is less visible from the outside is what happens once that demand enters an institution.

Questions that appear straightforward at the client level quickly become more complex internally. How does a product fit within existing governance frameworks? Who owns escalation when something breaks? What assumptions are being made around custody, liquidity, disclosure, and suitability?

Those questions rarely have a single owner. They cut across functions, incentives, and approval paths. When answers are incomplete or misaligned, progress slows even when strategic intent remains intact.

This shows up clearly in industry research. McKinsey’s 2025 work on digital assets found that while a majority of large asset managers now describe the category as strategically important, fewer than half believe their operating models are ready for scaled client delivery.

Conviction exists. Coordination often lags.

WHERE MOMENTUM ACTUALLY GETS LOST

Across large financial institutions, digital-asset initiatives tend to follow a familiar internal pattern.

First comes recognition. Leadership agrees the category matters and cannot be ignored indefinitely. 

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