'From Boomers To Bitcoin': Investment Firm Sees $4.6 Trillion Flowing Into Digital Assets Amid 'Great Wealth Transfer'

Humanity is in the midst of the greatest generational wealth transfer.
The cryptocurrency market looks set to significantly benefit from “the great wealth transfer.”
Legacy finance institutions are jumping into the cryptocurrency space.

Humanity is in the midst of the greatest generational wealth transfer yet. Big changes in everything from consumer behavior to investment strategies are afoot.

One sector expected to benefit is the cryptocurrency market.

Digital asset-focused investment firm Tephra Digital on Wednesday estimated that $4.6 trillion could flow into the cryptocurrency market by 2049 due to “the great wealth transfer.”

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“From boomers to Bitcoin: the great wealth transfer could unleash a long-term tsunami into digital assets,” the firm wrote on X.

Tephra Digital’s estimate is based on a recently released UBS report that found that a staggering $83.5 trillion will be passed on in the next 20-25 years.

Tephra Digital assumes that 1% of this sum will be allocated to digital assets in 2025 and anticipates that this allocation will linearly increase to 10% in 2049, averaging $183 billion annually.

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“That’s 100x the net flows into Bitcoin in 2024,” the firm said, suggesting significant price implications. Bitcoin exchange-traded funds saw $38 billion in net inflows in 2024, which helped the asset surge by as high as 150% within the year.

But Tephra Digital’s estimates may be conservative. Citing a similar study from Bank of America in last June, prominent market researcher Noelle Acheson said as much as $20 trillion could flow into the cryptocurrency market with the great wealth transfer. This is based on the study finding that 28% of rich American millennials preferred cryptocurrencies to stocks and bonds.

“If the inheriting class follows the pattern suggested by the survey, 24% of the wealth transfer—28% of the younger group favor crypto over stocks and bonds, minus 4% from the older group—could flow into the crypto market,” she said at the time while cautioning that sentiments could change in the coming years.

The current size of the entire crypto market is $3.5 trillion.

Findings suggesting significant capital inflows into the cryptocurrency market with the great wealth transfer continue to be supported by subsequent studies. A Charles Schwab study released in October showed that cryptocurrencies were the investment pick of 62% of millennial investors. A study from The Nakamoto Project teased on Monday said that four in five Americans were open to converting some of the country’s gold reserves into Bitcoin, with younger Americans open to converting as much as 30% of the reserves.

In line with this generational shift, more and more legacy finance institutions are jumping into the cryptocurrency space. The most poignant example is the $11.5 trillion asset manager BlackRock BLK. In 2017, CEO Larry Fink dismissed Bitcoin as an “index for money laundering.” The firm now boasts the largest Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, with about $69 billion in assets at last look. It also boasts a $2.5 billion on-chain money market fund. In April, Fink said Bitcoin could replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.