Many wealthy people have traditionally disregarded cryptocurrencies as viable investments due to their volatility and the stereotype that they’re a money laundering tool for criminals. US President and erstwhile businessman Donald Trump, for example, once said that crypto is “not money” and that it is “based on thin air”. Meanwhile, famous American investor Warren Buffett reportedly said in a 2018 investor meeting that Bitcoin was “probably rat poison squared”.

But with the crypto industry now worth over $4 trillion, coupled with growing support from traditional financial institutions and global regulators, both Trump and Buffett seem to have had a change of heart. Trump has pledged to turn the US into the “crypto capital of the world” during his second presidential administration, and his family has already made billions launching their own meme coins and crypto ventures.

Despite Buffett’s strong opposition to crypto, his company, Berkshire Hathaway, invested $500 million into digital banking firm Nu Holdings in 2021. The Brazil-based firm operates a dedicated crypto platform. Berkshire Hathaway followed up this investment with a $250 million cash injection and, while the company sold its stake in Nu in early 2025, this was a major u-turn for Buffet and his multinational holding firm.

As crypto becomes more mainstream, it seems lots of high-net-worth individuals and their family offices are becoming more confident with this technology and, subsequently, its investment potential. According to a recent report by BNY Wealth, 75 per cent of professionals working for single-family offices have digital asset investments or are considering adding them to their portfolio. This is a growth of 21 per cent in the past year. But how do wealthy individuals get started with crypto investments, and how can they make them a success?

Crypto as a lucrative alternative asset class

The explosive growth of crypto in the last decade, in addition to growing interest from institutional investors and the implementation of supportive regulations, has made the technology an ‘alternative asset class’ in its own right.

That’s the view of Pan Kotopoulos, UK country director at crypto investment platform Bitpanda. He believes that, given the transformative nature of crypto, investors will not only benefit from portfolio diversification but will be part of a technology poised to shape the financial services industry in the coming years.

This sentiment is echoed by Kate Leaman, chief market analyst at capital market company AvaTrade. Viewing crypto as one of the most significant technological developments in recent times, she believes it can provide high-net-worth individuals and family offices with a “parallel financial system that’s faster, more open and increasingly influential” than traditional stocks and bonds.

Edward Morris, founder of AI prompt engineering consultancy Enigmatica, is equally enthusiastic about crypto. In fact, he compares traditional asset classes like fiat (government-issued currencies) to “hoarding Nokia phones” and encourages wealthy people to become “part of the infrastructure powering the future of finance” by adding crypto to their portfolios.

Morris says the opportunities for crypto investment are endless, from “programmable money” and “digital art” to “decentralised artificial intelligence” and “machine learning-powered blockchains”. He adds that these varied use cases make crypto “viable and increasingly inevitable”.

Markus Levin, co-founder of blockchain firm XYO, even goes as far as to say that any investment portfolio that doesn’t have crypto is “incomplete” and that ignoring its potential is “unthinkable”. He says: “From 2014–2023, adding just one per cent Bitcoin to a 60/40 portfolio boosted returns by 25 per cent with virtually no added volatility, while a 5 per cent allocation more than doubled returns and barely increased volatility.”

Getting started with crypto

For wealthy investors and family offices new to crypto, Kotopoulos says an essential first step is to take time to understand crypto as an asset class. This research should ideally include the origins and historical performance of the crypto in question.

Once they feel confident in their understanding of crypto, he recommends that investors create a crypto investment strategy to establish their goals, calculate the amount of risk they can sustain when investing in crypto and sign up to a crypto platform with security guarantees.

Using a well-known crypto platform like Coinbase or Kraken is a good starting point owing to their “user-friendly interfaces” and “institutional-grade custody options”, according to industry expert Alex Cobb. He recommends that investors new to crypto use such platforms for “small, regular contributions”.

While an easy-to-use crypto trading platform will help investors get to grips with crypto, Cobb adds that they’ll still need to learn more about the crypto industry in order to “build informed strategies”. To do this, he advises staying up-to-date with the latest social media posts from well-known industry analysts and reading research from the likes of Messari and Delphi Digital.

Like Cobb, Morris advises against making significant crypto investments without properly understanding the technology. He encourages working with credible experts to ensure investments don’t go wrong and to come up with an effective strategy.

Whatever the case, he says investors need access to a “secure, institutional-grade custody” for securely storing their crypto keys — which are essentially passwords to one’s crypto and digital assets — rather than “a USB stick taped to the back of your Tesla”. He recommends Coinbase Institutional, Fireblocks or Anchorage.

It’s also vital to set objectives, such as holding onto investments for long periods of time, generating yield and exposing oneself to exciting AI projects, he adds. He also encourages investors to “structure things properly” using financial tools like tax wrappers for lowering tax liabilities, special purpose vehicles for separating specific investments from the main parent company, and trusts if your preference is for someone else to manage the investments.

Most importantly, Morris says those at the beginning of their crypto investment journeys should “start small” by making “a 1-5 per cent allocation”. He says this will be “enough to benefit if it moons” but, crucially, “not enough to ruin Christmas if it doesn’t”.

The best cryptocurrencies to invest in

What can make crypto investing so daunting for many is that there’s a plethora of cryptocurrencies available on the market, with varying use cases. Bitcoin is arguably the most well-known. According to Morris, it is a “solid” option with hedging potential — meaning it can be used to offset potential losses from other investments.

Ethereum is another widely adopted cryptocurrency and is a powerhouse for smart contracts – digital, self-executing transactions that exist on blockchains. Morris describes this cryptocurrency as “the engine room of Web3, tokenisation and decentralised AI”, so it’s a good option for any investor keen to expose themselves to the biggest developments in the tech industry.

Solana is another of Morris’ favourite cryptocurrencies, mainly because it is “fast, cheap and built like a jet”. While Solana isn’t as well-established as Bitcoin and Ethereum, its transaction fees are generally cheaper than the two main cryptocurrencies. He admits, however, that it’s a “touch riskier” because it is the also the primary engine of meme coins — cryptocurrencies based on internet memes — which are prone to quick rises in popularity (and value) followed by rapid declines when the meme in question is no longer relevant.

Stablecoins, meanwhile, can be a safer bet than popular cryptocurrencies because they are tied to traditional assets like gold and fiat currency, hence the ‘stable’ in the name. Morris says these prioritise “liquidity, yield strategies, and keeping your powder dry” over growth.

The risks of cryptocurrency

Although crypto might seem like an exciting investment opportunity, it’s also one of the riskiest asset classes any investor can choose. Its volatility is well-documented in the news, with major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum on a record high one day and plummeting into the ground the next.

But volatility isn’t the only risk of crypto investments. As Leaman points out, they carry major regulatory challenges because “laws can change fast”. In addition, cryptocurrencies are entirely run on the internet, which Leaman warns opens them up to “code bugs or protocol failures”. She also adds that they can be constrained by “human risk from bad actors, scams and user error”.

To overcome these challenges, Leaman says “allocation discipline” is paramount. This includes a comprehensive risk management strategy, the selection of cryptocurrencies with large market capitisations, and the use of audited and regulated crypto infrastructure. She tells Luxury London: “Finally, use the right tools, meaning secure wallets, regulated brokers or exchanges, experienced advisors, and tax-aware structuring.”

Agreeing with Leaman, Morris says crypto investments carry the risk of volatility, regulatory pushback, technical failures and scams. “It’s like investing in early internet stocks with the added bonus that some of them were made in a shed by a 19-year-old.”

He is, however, confident that many of the risks can be easily managed thanks to the proliferation of “AI-enhanced compliance tools and real-time risk monitoring”. Still, he recommends limiting one’s exposure, rebalancing crypto investments to manage risk accordingly, using insured crypto custodian services that comply with the latest regulatory demands and conducting thorough due diligence on every crypto investment.

The future of crypto investing

Risks aside, experts see a bright future for the crypto industry and digital assets. Over the coming years and decades, Kotopoulos expects digital assets like cryptocurrencies to “become part of everything” and to “change how value is stored and transferred and how real-world assets are traded and settled”.

He explains: “Stablecoins and tokenised assets can reshape capital markets. On-chain finance is poised to bring new levels of transparency and efficiency. We think that crypto will become a foundational building block of modern portfolios.”

Morris is also optimistic about how crypto will evolve in the foreseeable future. In particular, he predicts that more international regulators will introduce rules to keep crypto in check and manage the associated risks of crypto investing. At the same time, traditional financial institutions will become more confident with the technology as the underlying infrastructure matures. 


As a result of these developments, he says people won’t see crypto as an “alternative” but a “normal” class of investment. He concludes: “The winners won’t be the loudest; they’ll be the protocols powering the things you won’t even realise are blockchain-based. It’ll be woven into finance, supply chains, insurance, and even AI training datasets.”


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