Crypto stopped being a fringe topic for wealth management clients some time ago. It shows up in the news, in group chats, and in what a client’s adult children are doing with their own money. Increasingly, it shows up in what a client already owns, often before they mention it to their wealth manager. Most relationship managers aren’t uncomfortable that clients are asking about digital assets. In fact, what unsettles them is that clients are often better-read on the topic, at least on the headlines, than the adviser sitting across from them.

That gap creates a specific kind of risk. A client who senses their wealth manager is out of their depth on crypto doesn’t necessarily stop investing in it. They stop discussing it with that wealth manager instead, and move the conversation, and sometimes the assets, elsewhere. Avaloq’s 2025 Wealth Insights study found that 26% of affluent Singaporean investors already hold crypto, but only 17% do so through their existing financial provider. Nearly half (48%) of non-crypto holders said they’d invest if their own provider offered it. Often, the adviser simply never asked the question first.

Among UHNW and HNW clients specifically, the shift is already showing up in trading volumes. DBS Private Bank reported over US$1.4 billion in cryptocurrency trades and US$1 billion in crypto-linked instruments from this segment in H1 2025 alone, a fivefold increase from the same period in 2023. Globally, HSBC’s 2026 Affluent Investor Snapshot found crypto holds a modest 6% mean portfolio allocation among affluent and HNW investors. Still, 45% of those surveyed plan to increase their crypto holdings over the next year.