Key Takeaways
- • 86% of family offices are actively moving to include crypto and digital assets in investment strategies, yet regulatory and reporting barriers are preventing full adoption across a study of USD 119.37 billion in total wealth managed globally.
- • 70% of family offices considering crypto investments struggle to source third-party outsourcing support for regulatory and reporting compliance, leaving only 30% confident in their access to adequate specialist services.
- • Only 8% of family offices report being in a very strong position to meet global regulatory requirements, while 74% claim adequate positioning but 18% acknowledge below-average adaptive capacity—indicating structural gaps in regulatory infrastructure across the sector.
- • The regulatory support gap is driven by traditional service providers moving slower than regulators themselves, according to Rebecca Thorpe, Global Head of Regulatory Consulting at Ocorian, creating a mismatch between family office demand and available expertise.
- • Study encompasses 16 jurisdictions including UK, US, UAE, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and others, demonstrating that crypto regulatory friction is a global challenge, not isolated to specific regions.
Summary
A comprehensive global study by Ocorian reveals that family offices are rapidly integrating digital assets into their investment portfolios, but pervasive regulatory and reporting challenges are constraining their ability to execute these strategies at scale. The research, which surveyed family office executives managing USD 119.37 billion across 16 countries and territories, found that 86% are actively moving to include crypto and digital assets in their investment strategies—a strong signal of institutional appetite for this asset class.
However, the data exposes a critical infrastructure gap: approximately 70% of family offices considering crypto investments report difficulty sourcing adequate third-party outsourcing support for the regulatory and reporting obligations inherent to digital assets. This creates a paradox where strategic intent collides with operational constraints. Only 30% of respondents stated that sourcing regulatory support is not an issue, suggesting that those without problems likely represent larger or more specialized operations capable of building proprietary compliance infrastructure.
The regulatory challenge extends beyond crypto specifically. When asked about their broader capacity to meet increasingly complex global regulatory demands, only 8% of family offices reported being in a "very strong position." While 74% believe they are "quite strong" in their adaptive capacity, the remaining 18% acknowledge average or below-average ability to manage regulatory changes. Rebecca Thorpe, Global Head of Regulatory Consulting at Ocorian, attributed this friction to a structural mismatch: "Global regulators are struggling to keep up with the speed of change, but so are the more traditional service providers." This dual lag creates bottlenecks for family offices seeking agile, expert-level guidance on evolving crypto compliance frameworks.
The geographic scope of the study—spanning developed and emerging markets including the UK, US, UAE, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Mauritius, and Bahrain—indicates that regulatory uncertainty around digital assets is a systemic global issue rather than a localized problem. This suggests that family offices cannot rely on jurisdiction arbitrage or regulatory clarity in any single region to solve their compliance challenges. As crypto adoption accelerates among institutional investors, the inability of traditional service providers to deliver timely, specialized regulatory support may become a meaningful constraint on capital deployment into this asset class.
However, the data exposes a critical infrastructure gap: approximately 70% of family offices considering crypto investments report difficulty sourcing adequate third-party outsourcing support for the regulatory and reporting obligations inherent to digital assets. This creates a paradox where strategic intent collides with operational constraints. Only 30% of respondents stated that sourcing regulatory support is not an issue, suggesting that those without problems likely represent larger or more specialized operations capable of building proprietary compliance infrastructure.
The regulatory challenge extends beyond crypto specifically. When asked about their broader capacity to meet increasingly complex global regulatory demands, only 8% of family offices reported being in a "very strong position." While 74% believe they are "quite strong" in their adaptive capacity, the remaining 18% acknowledge average or below-average ability to manage regulatory changes. Rebecca Thorpe, Global Head of Regulatory Consulting at Ocorian, attributed this friction to a structural mismatch: "Global regulators are struggling to keep up with the speed of change, but so are the more traditional service providers." This dual lag creates bottlenecks for family offices seeking agile, expert-level guidance on evolving crypto compliance frameworks.
The geographic scope of the study—spanning developed and emerging markets including the UK, US, UAE, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Mauritius, and Bahrain—indicates that regulatory uncertainty around digital assets is a systemic global issue rather than a localized problem. This suggests that family offices cannot rely on jurisdiction arbitrage or regulatory clarity in any single region to solve their compliance challenges. As crypto adoption accelerates among institutional investors, the inability of traditional service providers to deliver timely, specialized regulatory support may become a meaningful constraint on capital deployment into this asset class.
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