Fund managers shift to diversification as Strategy weighs first Bitcoin sales since 2020

Institutional investors are increasingly treating crypto as a portfolio diversification tool rather than a speculative trade, according to a quarterly survey published by CoinShares Research on May 6.

The survey, which cut across 26 fund managers overseeing a combined $1.3 trillion in assets under management (AUM). It found that diversification and client demand now account for 63% of the reasons institutions allocate funds to digital assets.

Just two years ago, that figure stood at 36%.

Two years ago, speculation was the leading reason fund managers held digital assets. Today it sits at 15%.

– CoinShares head of research, James Butterfill.

The report shows institutional discipline

The median allocation to digital assets remained at 1%, with a weighted average of 0.1% (skewed downward by the larger institutions in the respondent pool).

Applied across the surveyed $1.3 trillion AUM, a 1% median position implies roughly $13 billion in baseline crypto exposure across this cohort alone.

Bitcoin and Ethereum together accounted for 58% of portfolio responses. Older alternatives like Cardano and Polkadot lost ground, while DeFi-linked tokens, including Aave, Sui, and Tron, attracted stronger interest.

In a research note published in May 2026, CFRA Research analyst Nathan Schmidt noted that Coinbase’s assets under custody have climbed to $516 billion, up 95% year over year, with stablecoins and crypto derivatives driving institutional adoption.

Cryptopolitan earlier reported that the Bitwise/VettaFi advisor benchmark survey found 99% of financial advisors with crypto exposure planned to maintain or increase allocations in 2026, with 64% holding more than 2% of client portfolios in crypto.

The CoinShares report confirms that institutional behavior at the asset-management level mirrors the pattern observed at the advisor level.

Saylor floats first Bitcoin sales as the leveraged model strains

The fund manager’s pivot toward discipline comes the same week as the leveraged corporate treasury model shows strain.

On May 5, Michael Saylor told Strategy’s Q1 2026 earnings call that the company may sell some of its 818,334 BTC holdings to fund dividend obligations.

In Saylor’s words:

We will probably sell some bitcoin to pay a dividend just to inoculate the market and send the message that we did it.

The comment cracked Saylor’s long-held “never sell” mantra.

As Cryptopolitan reported Tuesday, Saylor put Strategy’s Bitcoin pile in the same bucket as every other company asset for the first time, framing potential sales as part of the leveraged-credit model rather than panic.

Strategy reported a record $12.54 billion net loss for Q1, driven almost entirely by a $14.46 billion unrealized markdown on its Bitcoin position. The company has $1.5 billion in annual dividend obligations and roughly 18 months of cash coverage.

Two paths to crypto exposure are showing their wear and their wisdom in the same week.

Strategy’s leveraged treasury model is reckoning with what happens when Bitcoin draws down 25% in a quarter. Fund managers across $1.3 trillion in AUM are doing the opposite: smaller positions, more diversification, less speculation.

Internal compliance restrictions, not regulatory uncertainty, now sit as the top barrier to allocation.

The institutional pivot documented by the survey is not an abstract trend. It is the discipline that arrives when the leverage stops working.

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