2025 Recap
AIMA’s Digital Asset Forum 2025 in New York 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.
To find out how to get involved in next year’s Digital Asset Forum, or join AIMA’s Digital Asset Working Group, contact: Michelle Noyes.
2024 Recap
AIMA’s 3rd annual sold out Digital Assets Conference hosted over 300 of the industry’s top managers, investors, and experts gathering in one place, it was the place to be for those at the intersection of institutional asset management and crypto.
TAKEAWAYS:
- Stability Emerges: Institutional investors are largely rebuilding confidence with their stakeholders after a tumultuous 2022. While they remain largely on the sidelines, nimble allocators are seizing opportunities in both liquid and venture markets.
- Crypto Winter Spurs Innovation: During the bear market cycle, new tools developed for managing market and operational risks. Fund managers now navigate digital assets more adeptly, thanks to advancements in trading infrastructure.
- On-Chain Asset Management: Efficiencies promised by tokenization are driving asset management toward blockchain. Although the destination is clear, the precise timeline and path remain uncertain.
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs Fuel Growth: Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have attracted fresh attention and capital to digital assets. This trend benefits both passive and active managers, aiding broader acceptance and integrating cryptocurrencies into mainstream investment portfolios.
- Global Expansion: Amid US uncertainty, investment managers continue to diversify their businesses across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and offshore jurisdictions to tap into vibrant user ecosystems, new capital sources, and clearer regulatory frameworks for growth and innovation.
For details about last year's conference, click here.
2023 Recap
AIMA hosted its 2nd annual Digital Assets Conference on May 11, 2023. Another sold-out New York venue hosted an audience of 280 LPs, GPs and professionals from across the legacy alternative investments and digital assets industries to focus on ‘the how’ of allocating to digital assets.
For details about 2023's conference, click here.
Key Takeaways:
The suits are still here – financial services firms are committed to this space, and if anything, there were more "tradfi" institutions in the audience vs 2022. Motivations for institutional participation range from responding to client demand and finding new sources of alpha to portfolio diversification and technological innovation.
Regulation was the theme of the day. There was an expectation that the US will eventually pull through, but not before the 2024 Presidential election cycle. In the meantime, many firms are looking to open office or fully relocate abroad.
Enhanced due diligence and more robust risk management practices have become more prominent following the collapse of FTX. Panelists highlighted a strong focus on building and investing strategically in the non-investment side of the business during market slowdown. Infrastructure improvements around areas such as software, wallets and interoperability are still needed for mass adoption of blockchain.
Tokenization continues to attract development and attention – still largely in a building vs deployment phase and there is expected to be an evolution from private to public blockchain, which may mirror the development of cloud computing. Use cases continue to develop.
Digital Assets 2023 Slideshow by KHRISTEL ALDANA
Additional resources:
You can download AIMA’s Industry Guide on Digital Asset Trading here.
AIMA's digital asset work can be found here
Podcasts
We hear and read about digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies, all the time but they are still surrounded by misconceptions.
Our host Drew Nicol speaks to Michelle Noyes, AIMA’s head of Americas and a driving force for the association’s digital assets working group, to dispel some common myths around digital assets and explains how hedge funds are navigating the opportunities and challenges in this emerging market.
The Current Landscape from a Pioneering Asset Manager’s Perspective
Eric Peters, the Founder and CIO of One River Asset Management, participated in an opening fireside chat with John D’Agostino. Peters, a traditional macro hedge fund manager, has been a pioneer in investing in digital assets. Peters and D’Agostino began their chat as UST, a stablecoin, was melting down, but as a manager with institutional clients, he conveyed and encouraged a long-term view. To hear more from Peters, listen to his AIMA podcast available here.
How stable is a stablecoin really?
With digital assets never far from the headlines, The Long-Short has embarked on an in-depth exploration of stablecoins and central bank digital currencies.
Our guest, Teana Baker-Taylor, a policy and regulatory strategy expert at Circle, a global fintech firm, untangles the debate about what stablecoins are – and what they aren’t – and their potential impact on businesses and our daily lives.
She also discusses the nuances of navigating the evolving landscape of stablecoins, including the need to safeguard and educate investors against bad actors.
What do hedge funds think of crypto in 2023?
The 5th Annual Global Crypto Hedge Fund Report (2023), a new research piece from AIMA, PwC and CoinShares, is out now providing some much-needed insight and data to the pressing questions around the current sentiment of traditional hedge funds and crypto fund managers towards the digital asset investment space today.
To delve into the findings, Drew Nicol is joined by a couple of the report’s authors, Peter Brewin, a Partner at PwC Hong Kong, and James Delaney, a Director in AIMA’s Government Affairs team and central figure in AIMA’s Digital Assets Working Group (AIMA DAWG). The in-depth conversation covers emerging trends, investment strategies, evolving market structure, regulatory efforts and industry reaction to 2022 crypto market events.
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