CoinShares survey flags 2026 affluent crypto buying plans as rates stay above 5%
OKX extended its $25B-valuation round and an OKX-ICE venture filed with the SEC for tokenized stocks, while Strategy leaned into STRC buybacks.
Affluent investors across seven developed markets already hold crypto at high rates and many plan to add in 2026, even as adviser relationships lag, a new CoinShares survey found. The demand signal lands in a market still constrained by yields above 5%, alongside OKX’s $25 billion funding-round extension and Strategy’s decision to prioritize preferred-share buybacks over Bitcoin buys last week.
CoinShares’ Affluent Survey: High Ownership Now, More Buying Planned for 2026
CoinShares surveyed 2,230 investors with at least $500,000 in investable assets across the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, and found a majority already hold digital assets, with crypto averaging about 10% of portfolios in the sample.
Ownership rates varied by country, ranging from 54% in Sweden to roughly 70% in the US, UK, Germany and Switzerland. The more market-relevant datapoint was intent: in five of the seven countries, at least 85% of existing crypto investors said they planned to increase exposure in 2026, which reads less like a “new adopter” story and more like incremental demand from people who already have positions.
The friction is still in the advice channel. About four in 10 respondents in Switzerland, France, the US and Germany who work with an adviser described that adviser as “overly cautious” about digital assets, a gap that matters because it can slow allocation changes even when the end client is willing.
There is also a live dispute on the portfolio-weight number. Ric Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, questioned the survey’s 10% average allocation figure, saying his research suggests 2% to 5% allocations are more common, even as he recommends 10% to 40% depending on risk tolerance. For traders, that disagreement makes the ownership and intent-to-add signals cleaner than the exact “average allocation” headline.
Flows vs Headwinds: BTC’s Q3 Surge Meets Yields Above 5% and a Post-Hike Fed
Bitcoin’s tape has been strong on the quarter but awkward on the macro. Delphi Digital pointed to Bitcoin’s 43% third-quarter gain and third consecutive weekly advance, but warned that “the grind higher is happening against real resistance,” tying that resistance to the Federal Reserve’s September rate hike and Treasury yields above 5%.
That rates backdrop is doing two things at once. It offers a high-yield alternative to risk assets, and it forces every crypto inflow narrative to compete with a cash rate that is no longer trivial, which is why medium-term demand signals like “more buying planned in 2026” can coexist with near-term price sensitivity to data and policy.
The packet’s own price framing reflects that push-pull. Bitcoin briefly climbed above $87,000 last week before pulling back to below $83,000 on Wednesday.
There were also signs the market is trying to price a less aggressive path from here. September payrolls showed 29,000 jobs added versus forecasts of 80,000, which lowered the odds of an October rate hike per CME FedWatch, a market-based tool that estimates future Federal Reserve moves using fed funds futures pricing. New York Fed President John Williams said there was “no urgency” to raise rates again.
OKX’s $25B Round Extension and SEC Tokenized-Stock Filing Add a TradFi-Integration Thread
OKX raised an undisclosed amount at a $25 billion valuation, extending a funding round that previously brought in $200 million from Intercontinental Exchange in March. Participants in the extension included SC Ventures, Qube Research & Technologies, Ripple and Circle.
The size and terms of the extension were not disclosed, which limits how much can be inferred about balance-sheet runway or expansion pace from the headline valuation alone.
On the product side, an OKX-ICE joint venture filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to launch a tokenized stock trading platform, meaning a system that lets users trade blockchain-based tokens designed to represent shares of publicly traded companies. The filing seeks to operate under the SEC’s new innovation exemption, and the platform’s launch remains contingent on both the filing and the exemption, so this is still a process milestone rather than an operating venue.
The next checkpoints are procedural and dated. The SEC’s response path on the innovation exemption matters most, because approval, a request for changes, or a denial each implies a different timeline for any launch. OKX’s undisclosed raise size and terms are also unresolved, and any later disclosure would change how traders handicap the round as either a strategic extension or a material new capital injection.
Strategy has its own calendar catalyst. Shareholders are scheduled to vote on Oct. 28, 2026 on a proxy proposal to move preferred dividends for STRC, STRF, STRK and STRD to a daily schedule, with Strategy saying daily STRC dividends would begin in November and daily dividends for the other three would begin in January if approved.
My Take: Strategy’s Buyback-Heavy Week Is a Reminder That BTC Demand Isn’t One-Dimensional
The CoinShares survey is being read as a near-term inflow trigger, and the timeline does not support that. The signal is medium-term: affluent investors in the sample already own crypto at high rates and, in most surveyed countries, existing holders say they plan to add in 2026, which is a tailwind only if it survives the adviser-friction bottleneck and the rates regime that is still offering 5%+ alternatives.
What stands out more immediately is how variable the “corporate bid” can be. Strategy spent $176.3 million repurchasing 1.77 million STRC shares last week versus $28.7 million buying 334 Bitcoin, and its Monday SEC 8-K put holdings at exactly 848,000 BTC, a clean example of capital structure priorities reshaping BTC-linked flows even when the headline narrative is “accumulation.” The threshold that matters is whether these demand channels translate into sustained net buying while yields stay above 5%, because that is when the 2026 intent signal becomes tradable rather than just interesting.
