fund managers

More than 80% of institutional investors polled that have already invested in digital assets expect to increase their exposure.

A new survey suggests that hedge fund executives, wealth managers, and institutional investors already holding crypto assets intend to increase their holdings.

The survey, conducted by London-based crypto fund Nickel Digital Asset Management, revealed that 82% of the 100 investors and wealth managers polled expect to increase their exposure to digital assets between now and 2023.

The research, conducted online in May and June and shared with Cointelegraph, surveyed 50 wealth managers and 50 institutional investors with prior exposure to crypto assets spanning the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and the UAE.

Four out of ten, or 40%, stated that they will “dramatically increase their holdings” with just 7% stating that they intend to reduce their exposure, and only 1% planning to sell their entire holdings.

However, Nickel did state that in most cases institutional investors with crypto holdings have very low levels of exposure as “many have just been testing to market to see how it works.”

The survey revealed that the primary reason given for investing more in digital assets is the long-term capital growth prospects according to 58% of the respondents. Even with the massive market slump, BTC has still made 18% so far this year and Ethereum is up a whopping 215% since January 1.

Around 38% of those surveyed claimed having some exposure to crypto assets gave them more confidence in the asset class, while 37% cited more leading corporates and fund managers investing in crypto assets as a reason to invest further.

Related: 1 in 5 investors at firms that don't trade in crypto say they are 'likely' to in future

Co-founder and CEO of Nickel Digital, Anatoly Crachilov, commented that confidence in the asset class is increasing and he expects the trend to continue, adding:

“Our analysis at the start of June this year revealed that 19 listed companies with a market cap of over $1 trillion had around $6.5 billion invested in Bitcoin, having originally spent $4.3 billion buying the cryptocurrency.”

As reported by Cointelegraph last month, a survey conducted by U.K. investment firm AJ Bell’s revealed that more people bought crypto assets than stock related savings products over the past year.

A MasterCard survey in May revealed that four in ten people plan to use cryptocurrency for payments within the next year.