High-Net-Worth Investors Want In on Cryptocurrencies

The wealthy want a piece of the crypto action.

According to a survey by the wealth management consultancy deVere Group, 35 percent of its 600 high-net-worth clients from the U.S., the UK, France, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, South Africa and Hong Kong have bought, or soon will buy, cryptocurrencies,

“I believe that there is no longer any doubt that cryptocurrencies in some form are the future of money,” Nigel Green, founder and CEO of deVere Group, said in the survey announcement.

deVere added it will make it easier for clients to do their buying thanks to adding bitcoin cash (BCH) and eos (EOS) to its existing Crypto app. The app has enabled users to buy, sell, store and exchange bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), litecoin (LTC) and ripple (XRP), among other currencies.

deVere’s announcement Tuesday of the app and the survey results offers additional evidence of rising interest in cryptocurrency as an investment. But that doesn’t lessen the risks.

“I expect that a broader awareness and understanding of the crypto sector will grow exponentially in the next year as the tech that underpins it further improves, as major corporations and financial institutions embrace it and as regulation is further developed,” Green said.

Research firm Nielsen defines the “mass affluent” as households with investible assets of $250,000 to $1 million, not including their personal homes. This group comprises about 11 percent of Americans.

The company focuses heavily on expat and other clients in more than 100 countries. It has more than $10 billion under management.

But some wealth management observers remain cautious in their appraisals. Cryptocurrencies are not investment-grade assets that prudent investors are likely to use to build a robust portfolio with sustained growth, Michael Guillemette, a certified financial planner and assistant professor in the Personal Financial Planning department at Texas Tech University, tells ThirtyK.