The mood around digital assets has changed again among the world’s largest allocators, according to Ron Biscardi, CEO of iConnections, which hosts one of the world’s largest IPO conferences.
Biscardi, who has spent more than 25 years in the alternative investment industry and manages a platform that represents more than $55 trillion in assets, has a front-row seat. His company monitors thousands of meetings between fund managers and institutional investors each year. This data shows how quickly sentiment can change.
After a “rough” few years following the crypto market crash that followed FTX’s collapse in 2022, interest began to stabilize at last year’s conference, he recalls. “[In 2025] We started to see funds wanting to come back, wanting to spend money,” he said. Optimism around a more crypto-friendly regulatory stance in Washington has helped, although progress has been slow.
“I feel like what we’re seeing now at the event [this year] “It’s a more normal experience,” Biscardi said. “It’s not extremely crazy, but it’s not either [like] “I don’t want to go near it.”
A change of tone
More than 75 digital asset funds participated in this year’s event, generating around 750 meetings between managers and allocators, a level comparable to 2022, when interest in crypto soared before FTX’s collapse. Nearly a quarter of iConnections platform sponsors now indicate interest in digital asset strategies, reinforcing that crypto has become an established fixture among alternatives rather than a fringe allocation.
Family offices represent the largest cohort of LPs expressing interest, which is consistent with their history as emerging, innovation-driven asset classes.
And this trend has become more pronounced in recent years. While some family offices remain cautious about this asset, many traditional wealth managers are under increasing pressure to provide digital assets to wealthy clients, particularly in crypto hotspots like Dubai, Switzerland and Singapore.
This interest is alive and well despite the crypto winter, with the price of bitcoin BTC$66,061.04 down nearly 25% since the start of the year and its market capitalization has lost more than a trillion in value since October’s all-time high. Shares of popular crypto companies, like Coinbase (COIN) or Strategy (MSTR), are also trading significantly lower this year, underperforming most other tech stocks.
Biscardi believes, however, that digital asset managers are “very, very close to achieving institutional legitimacy.” Bitcoin, he said, has already crossed this line, but altcoins are close. “The last piece is actually the regulatory framework that allows them to do this safely. »
For investment managers, this question dominates. “Regulatory hurdles are number one,” Biscardi said. “It always comes back to that.”
Large allocators, he emphasized, are fiduciaries. “It’s not their money, they’re fiduciaries for other people’s money, and that could be a very attractive category, but they’re just not going to allocate it until they can tell their board that they’re doing it responsibly and safely.”
The tone of the debate has also changed. In 2022, some investors were still wondering if crypto was real or a Ponzi scheme. “I don’t hear any of that anymore,” Biscardi said.
In fact, some traditionally conservative capital pools, for example, have stepped in. Endowments, which tend to focus on long-term stability and avoid sharp swings in new asset classes, have begun to allocate to Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded funds. The idea is not to reshuffle portfolios but to add measured exposure that could boost returns in years when crypto markets perform well, especially as many investors expect stocks to generate more modest gains than over the past decade.
Another risky asset
Nonetheless, allocators treat Bitcoin “much more like a risk asset” than a store of value. “Bitcoin just hasn’t behaved that way,” he said, noting its correlation with stocks rather than gold during market stress.
Likewise, the direct purchase of tokens remains rare among institutions. Instead, he hears more about ETFs and fund structures. Sponsors rely on general partners to choose specific pieces. “LPs coming into the industry are really looking to GPs to make those decisions.”
What is not uncommon is for crypto companies to invest in creating awareness about their products and services. According to Biscardi, the number of sponsorships saw a substantial increase at this year’s event, with companies like BitGo (BTGO), Galaxy Digital (GLXY), Ripple and Blockstream all holding top-tier sponsor status.
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