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Germany leads UK in crypto adoption, driven by wealth managers and youth: CoinShares
A CoinShares survey reveals over half of UK wealth advisers don't know what crypto their clients hold, while Germany races ahead with 89 licensed providers under MiCA.
Germany has quietly become the European Union’s crypto adoption leader, and the gap between it and the UK is wider than most market watchers expected. CoinShares crypto researcher Luke Nolan laid out the case on September 17, pointing to a confluence of institutional enthusiasm, regulatory clarity, and a generational wealth transfer that’s funneling fresh capital into digital assets.
The numbers paint a stark picture. Germany now has 89 authorized crypto-asset service providers, accounting for 25.5% of the entire European Securities and Markets Authority register under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. That’s a quarter of the EU’s licensed crypto infrastructure sitting in a single country.
The wealth management factor
Family offices and wealth managers are increasingly steering inherited wealth into digital assets, according to CoinShares’ findings. Deutsche Bank is expected to receive regulatory approval for crypto custody services by October 2026, which would make one of Europe’s largest banks a direct on-ramp for institutional crypto exposure.
Deutsche Bank isn’t even first to the party. Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, Germany’s largest state-owned bank, launched crypto custody services back in April 2024 through a partnership with Bitpanda.
The UK’s management gap
A June 2026 survey commissioned by CoinShares, covering 261 wealth management professionals across major European markets, found that 52% of UK financial advisers were unaware of more than half of their clients’ digital asset holdings. Across Europe, that figure sits at 25%.
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CoinShares attributes the gap primarily to firm-level policies that restrict how wealth managers can engage with digital assets. This creates a dynamic where UK investors are buying crypto on their own, outside the advisory relationship, leaving their wealth managers with an incomplete picture of their total portfolio risk.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority maintained a ban on retail crypto-related exchange-traded products that began in January 2021 and was only lifted in the past year.
MiCA as a competitive advantage
MiCA, the EU’s comprehensive crypto regulatory regime, gave German firms a clear rulebook. They knew what licenses to apply for, what compliance standards to meet, and what products they could offer. Germany’s 89 licensed providers represent critical mass, with heavyweight names like Deutsche Bank and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg lending credibility that pure-play crypto firms can’t match on their own.