Citi Wealth report shows digital asset sentiment improves among family offices

Citi Wealth released its 2025 Global Family Office report compiled by the group’s 1,800 family offices worldwide. The report shows that global family offices have moved 10 paces forward when it comes to net sentiment towards digital assets.

The sentiment swung from -11% in 2024 to -1% this year. Citi Wealth report notes that this reflects the new US administration warming up towards cryptocurrencies. The report covered responses from 346 entities from 45 countries around the world.

This is interesting given that most sentiments decreased except for hedge funds, private equity, and commodities, as well as digital assets. In terms of bullishness, 19% of respondents were bullish on digital assets, compared to 63% who were neutral and 19% who were bearish, which is exactly the same as their sentiment about cash.

Family offices cite lack of expertise as top barrier to AI adoption

Historically, most Family Offices capped their crypto exposure at 1-5% of their total portfolios. However, in 2025, a BNY Mellon report highlighted that these allocations widened, with larger Family Offices (AUM > $1B) averaging close to 8%, smaller ones (AUM < $1B) around 5%.

According to the Citi Wealth report, family offices expect portfolio appreciation. Nearly four out of ten anticipated returns of 10% or more. Rather than liquidate holdings in response to the tariff policies.

Family offices also rotated toward more defensive geographies and sectors, while keeping overall allocations intact, with cash holdings edged down. According to the report, they largely maintained their asset allocations, with half of them keeping their fixed income holdings steady and two-thirds keeping them in real estate.

Private equity saw the most notable bullish movement, with those increasing allocations outnumbering those decreasing by 26%.

Family offices were mainly concerned with trade wars (60%), with US-China relations being the second biggest concern (43%), followed by the resurgence of inflation (37%). The Middle East conflict and the Russia–Ukraine war were seen as substantially lesser risks (14% and 9% respectively).

Also, family office respondents who brought up the topic of AI deployment doubled in this year’s survey compared to 2024. They are interested in the automation of operational tasks (22%) and investment analysis or forecasting (22%).

AI has yet to be integrated across all functions, particularly in areas involving risk and compliance. For most family offices, the main barriers include a lack of internal expertise (57%), limited awareness (34%), and concerns about cybersecurity and return on investment.

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