AIMA’s Digital Asset Forum 2025 in New York last week brought together hundreds of industry leaders, including fund managers, investors, regulators, and service providers, for a timely festival of ideas and a chance to analyse the fast-moving crypto market in the US and globally.

The wide-ranging and insightful panels and breakout sessions raised a plethora of actionable takeaways, some of which are detailed below.

Institutional investors show a growing appetite despite structural challenges. Institutional interest in digital assets continues to grow, driven notably by bitcoin's role as a macro asset amid concerns about de-dollarization and inflationary pressures. However, broad institutional adoption remains constrained given other investment priorities and the slow pace of change in investment frameworks. In particular, institutions currently struggle to effectively categorize liquid crypto strategies, but a new institutional classification, "liquid venture", is emerging to address this issue. 

Asset tokenization moves from theory to institutional reality. Tokenization of traditional assets, including treasuries, private credit, and real estate, is now delivering operational benefits, such as instantaneous settlement, increased transparency, reduced operational costs, and improved liquidity. Major financial institutions and asset managers have successfully implemented tokenized investment vehicles, proving the concept and are working towards increased scale.  

Counterparty and liquidity risks remain significant concerns. Institutional investors continue to highlight counterparty and liquidity risks as key challenges. While custody solutions and prime brokerage infrastructure have improved, vulnerabilities exposed through incidents involving centralized exchanges underscore persistent concerns. Institutions now demand enhanced transparency, rigorous operational due diligence, and comprehensive risk disclosures.  

Incremental integration of on-chain finance is underway. While decentralized finance (DeFi) and on-chain finance offer compelling use cases and operational efficiencies, traditional institutional engagement remains gradual. Adoption so far is largely driven by crypto-native entities and institutions exploring treasury management solutions via stablecoins. Comprehensive integration into mainstream institutional finance is anticipated to be gradual, evolving significantly over the next decade.  

Demographic shifts accelerate long-term digital asset adoption. Generational shifts, particularly among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who are more likely to be digital-native and blockchain-savvy, represent a substantial catalyst for future digital asset adoption. Expectations from these cohorts for seamless digital financial solutions, integrated wallets, and tokenized asset ownership will significantly accelerate the broader integration of digital assets into the financial mainstream.  

The discussions were informed by AIMA’s response to the US SEC’s new Crypto Task Force, which detailed ways in which the agency can improve the digital asset market environment.

Many thanks to our event sponsors, without whom AIMA’s events would not be such a valuable resource for members.