A sharp pullback in the crypto market in recent days has cratered valuations for Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies; however, advisors’ caution in allocating to crypto has largely insulated them from the volatility. 

Advisors who allocate to crypto largely use ETFs. The crypto crash has prompted a surge in trading volume. (BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF, IBIT, for example, saw a record of nearly 300 million shares traded last Thursday, over $10 billion in notional value.)

The market remains bearish on a recovery, despite Bitcoin’s value seemingly stabilizing around $70,000 after dropping to a low of $60,000 from a 2026 peak of around $100,000. According to analysis from Bloomberg, Bitcoin perpetual futures are flashing continued warning signs.

According to FUSE Research, only one-quarter of the financial advisors it has surveyed allocate to crypto at all, with RIAs and wirehouses having greater allocations than IBDs. As of November, an additional 15% of the advisors FUSE surveyed planned to use crypto within the next two years.

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“This is an area where advisors have been gradually increasing their exposure mainly through crypto ETFs,” said Loren Fox, director of research at FUSE Research Network. “The real question is whether the downturn we’ve seen changes advisor and investor views on how much volatility they can tolerate. One would assume that people go into crypto knowing it’s volatile, but that knowledge is different than experiencing firsthand what we’ve seen in recent weeks.”

Analysis of 13-F filings sheds light on RIA usage of crypto ETFs. Analysis from AdvizorPro found that only 4% of practicing RIAs hold any crypto ETFs. (That does not account for exposures to crypto outside of ETFs, however. More sophisticated clients often own crypto directly through crypto custodians or private vehicles. Those allocations do not show up in 13-F filings.)

Among RIAs allocating to crypto ETFs, the vast majority have less than 1% of AUM invested in them. A handful of firms have allocations north of 5%, with the highest at around 12%. 

Those allocations are in line with guidance from studies suggesting that crypto allocations above 2% in traditional portfolios can lead to a significant concentration of risk.  

“The small handful of firms with crypto above 5% skew toward smaller RIAs (max $1.6 billion AUM) with a heavy HNW concentration, where clients have the balance sheets and risk tolerance to make crypto ‘move the needle’ in reported percentages,” Michael Magnan, founder and CEO of AdvizorPro, wrote in an email reply. “In these cases, a small number of clients can materially tilt the numbers, and non-ETF crypto exposure likely mirrors this dynamic.”

Related:Fidelity Investments to Launch Stablecoin in Coming Weeks

Previous analysis from AdvizorPro found iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) and Fidelity Ethereum ETF (FETH) took the top two spots for the fastest-growing funds among RIAs in the third quarter of 2025. The number of RIAs invested in EHTA rose by 112.43% quarter-over-quarter, to 376, while the number of RIAs holding FETH rose by 85.25% to 113. 

A similar analysis of RIAs’ 13-Fs from Discovery Data found that BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) is the most popular crypto ETF in the space. In fact, it accounts for just more than half ($22.7 billion) of the roughly $40 billion allocated to crypto ETFs by RIAs. iShares Ethereum Trust ETF is the second-most-popular ETF ($4.6 billion). Other ETFs with more than $1 billion cumulative allocations from RIAs include Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) and Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB).