None of the 15 institutions interviewed by asset manager Bitwise reduced their crypto allocations during a market downturn of roughly 50%, and several bought more, according to the firm's Institutional Crypto Adoption Report.

Every institution in the group that owned crypto held Bitcoin (BTC), typically as its largest and longest-held position, while Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) served as smaller bets with shorter investment horizons and explicit conditions for selling.

The report draws on interviews conducted in late March and April, amid a market decline that began in October 2025. Respondents included investment professionals at endowments, foundations, public pensions, sovereign wealth funds, multi-family offices, investment consultants, and public companies.

When asked what could prompt them to sell, none of the institutions cited falling prices. Instead, respondents pointed to a regulatory reversal, an industry-wide credibility crisis, or a failure of their investment thesis. Some said they would sell Ether or Solana if growth in network use failed to benefit the tokens.

Allocations among institutions with crypto exposure ranged from 0.5% to 13% of investable assets, though most fell between 1% and 2%. Bitwise said nearly every institution it interviewed either used spot crypto exchange-traded funds or planned to, with some investors shifting from private placements or direct custody toward ETFs. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs began trading in January 2024, giving allocators a fund structure that did not exist in earlier market cycles.

A separate 13F data report from CoinShares, published in June, found that professional investors' reported US spot Bitcoin ETF exposure fell 17% in the first quarter. 13Fs are the quarterly holdings disclosures that institutional investment managers file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Hedge funds and brokerages accounted for roughly 96% of the reduction, while banks added exposure. The pullback was concentrated among trading-oriented firms, a different population from the endowments, foundations, and public pensions that made up Bitwise's interview pool.

Bitcoin Leads Institutional Conviction as ETH, SOL Face 'Prove It' Test

For almost all the Bitcoin holders interviewed, BTC was their first, largest, and longest-held crypto asset. Most treated it as a store of value, often alongside gold.

Conviction around ETH and SOL was less consistent. Several institutions said they could exit those positions over the next few years if growth in areas such as stablecoins, decentralized finance, and tokenization failed to translate into value accruing to the assets themselves.

One institution that held neither Ether nor Solana had used DeFi applications extensively but saw no clear way that activity would benefit the underlying tokens, according to Bitwise. Those stated criteria give observers a concrete checklist to track: whether stablecoin, DeFi, and tokenization growth begins accruing value to ETH and SOL, and whether the portfolio-level red lines of regulatory reversal or an industry-wide credibility crisis are ever crossed.