Close to 1 in 3 Surveyed Hedge Funds Plan Crypto Investments - PwC

cryptonews.com:

Close to one out of three – or 29% – of hedge funds that are not yet invested in digital assets say they are looking to invest or are in late-stage planning for investments in the space, a new survey by consulting giant PwC has revealed.

The survey was conducted in the 1st quarter of 2022 on a sample of 77 specialist crypto hedge fund managers, in collaboration with Elwood Asset Management (now a part of CoinShares).

According to the survey results, published in PwC’s Global Crypto Hedge Fund Report for 2022, the share of hedge funds that are looking to the crypto market for their future investments has risen from 26% last year to 29% this year. The majority of the funds looking towards the crypto market said they are now in “late-stage planning” for the investment, the survey found.

At the same time, the survey also found that 41% of uninvested hedge funds are unlikely to invest in the next three years, while 31% said they are “curious” about digital assets, but prefer to wait for the market to mature more.

Among the funds that were not invested, the top reason for staying away from crypto was “regulatory and tax uncertainty,” the PwC report said. That was followed by “client reaction” or “reputational risk” as the second-biggest concern for the crypto-skeptical funds.

Meanwhile, the report said that one in three surveyed hedge funds has already invested in digital assets. The number is up significantly from last year’s report when only one in five funds said they had investments in crypto.

Among the funds that have already invested, an average of 4% of assets under management are now invested in crypto, an increase from 3% a year ago. Still, for the funds with more than USD 5bn in total assets under management, the