Crypto Is Moving Into the Financial Mainstream
Crypto is no longer a fringe asset class. It is increasingly present in private wealth portfolios for two distinct reasons.
First, a growing number of individuals have accumulated significant wealth directly through crypto. The number of crypto millionaires has grown with a compound annual growth rate of more than 80% since 2022, creating a new cohort of wealthy clients whose source of wealth is natively on-chain.
Second, traditional high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients are allocating part of their portfolios to crypto alongside more established asset classes. In the United States, 26% of HNWIs with assets above USD 1 million already own crypto. While regional dynamics differ, the broader trend is clear: crypto exposure is no longer limited to early adopters.
As a result, crypto increasingly appears in client balance sheets, source-of-wealth discussions, and onboarding cases – regardless of whether a bank actively offers crypto products.
Financial institutions Are Moving – But Cautiously
In response, many financial institutions across the EU and Switzerland have already launched, or are actively evaluating, crypto-related services. These include custody, payments, tokenization initiatives, and structured access to digital assets.
At the same time, a significant number of institutions remain hesitant to accept crypto assets or onboard clients with crypto-related wealth. The reasons are consistent across markets:
Limited transparency and understanding of on-chain activity
Perceived complexity of crypto transactions and entities
High cost and operational burden of establishing transparency
Tooling that is designed for investigations or asset recovery rather than routine onboarding
Most available solutions were not built with banks’ day-to-day compliance workflows in mind. They are often too complex, too manual, and too expensive to scale for what financial institutions actually need in standard onboarding and periodic review processes.
Client Pressure and Competitive Dynamics Are Increasing
Even financial institutions that have taken a cautious stance are increasingly confronted with client expectations. As more clients gain crypto exposure – either directly or indirectly – relationship managers and compliance teams face recurring questions:
Can the bank onboard this client?
How should crypto wealth be assessed and documented?
What level of analysis is sufficient and defensible?
At the same time, some institutions are already making the leap and expanding their crypto capabilities. This creates competitive pressure: financial institutions that cannot handle crypto-related wealth risk losing clients, even if crypto itself is not their core offering.
In this environment, “wait and see” does not necessarily reduce risk. It often shifts risk into operational bottlenecks, inconsistent decision-making, and missed client opportunities.
What Financial Institutions Actually Need to Handle Crypto at Scale
For most financial institutions, the challenge is not building deep investigative capabilities. It is creating a repeatable, policy-aligned process that works across teams and scales with growing onboarding volumes.
In practice, financial institutions need:
A user-friendly solution that can be distributed across teams with clear access rights, avoiding bottlenecks created by user-based pricing models
Clear guidance on next steps, based on transaction flows and entity exposures, with adjustable parameters that align analysis with internal policies
Automated audit trails and reports to support consistent documentation and defensible decisions
Periodic monitoring and automated transaction monitoring to ensure continued compliance after onboarding
These requirements are operational by nature. They are about workflow, governance, and scalability – not about performing investigations on every case.
A Compliance-First Approach to Crypto Due Diligence
Addressing this gap requires tooling that is purpose-built for financial institutions and developed in close collaboration with compliance teams.
WalletCheck was built by bankers for bankers, together with compliance professionals from top-tier international financial institutions. The focus is on enabling institutions to handle crypto-related onboarding and monitoring in a way that is structured, scalable, and aligned with internal policies – without unnecessary complexity.
As crypto exposure among clients continues to grow, financial institutions need solutions that evolve with their requirements rather than forcing them into investigation-centric workflows that do not fit their operating model.
Looking ahead
Crypto is becoming an integral part of client wealth – whether financial institutions actively promote it or not. Institutions that invest early in the right operational foundations will be better positioned to manage risk, meet client expectations, and scale responsibly.
If you would like to learn more about how WalletCheck supports crypto onboarding, documentation, and monitoring in a compliance-first way, feel free to reach out for a demo:
