Demand for crypto among Asia’s next-generation wealthy is now nearly as strong as demand for gold, according to a new private banking study, while a separate comparison of three major exchange breaches argues that loss absorption capacity and custody architecture—not the size of a hack—determine whether users are made whole.
The WealthSummit inaugural NextGen Private Banking Clients Study 2026, released in Singapore on September 24 and produced with crypto exchange Independent Reserve, surveyed heirs, entrepreneurs and family business successors in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Gen X accounted for 61% of respondents, Gen Y 31% and Gen Z 8%. More than seven in ten said their main bank was different from their parents, and 68% bank with three or more institutions.
On AI, 77% said they would rely primarily on AI for everyday banking and payments, 70% for monitoring investments and 56% for researching investment ideas and market developments. Yet the preference reverses for consequential work: 63% prefer an adviser to understand their overall financial position, 80% prefer human advice on tax and legal matters, and 89% want a human for long-term wealth planning. This week Robinhood unveiled AI agents that can analyse markets, build strategies and execute trades inside ring-fenced accounts, with manual approval required by default.
For crypto, 22% of respondents expect their private bank to provide access to crypto, on-chain finance and DeFi, just behind gold and precious metals at 24%. Private markets remain far more in demand at 70%, followed by club deals at 51% and hedge funds at 33%. Notably, 23% of Gen X respondents want crypto access versus 16% of Gen Z, challenging the framing of crypto as a young investor’s trade. Other research points in the same direction: UBS found about 11% of actively managing heirs held crypto, while UOB research showed 33% of Asian high-net-worth investors aged 30 to 45 ranked digital assets among their top three asset classes versus 17% of those over 60.
Relationship managers at private banks remain the most cited source of investment advice at 40%, but independent asset managers are close behind at 37%. Only 10% of respondents rated private banks very competent at managing wealth for their generation, with 43% choosing somewhat competent. DBS already offers spot trading through its DDEx exchange, cold-storage custody and trust structures, and was named the world’s best private bank for digital assets in Euromoney’s 2026 awards; its high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients traded more than $1.4 billion of crypto in the first half of 2025. Still, only 16% of respondents would consider crypto banks or platforms to manage their wealth, versus 42% for independent asset managers and 33% for online or neo-banks—most wealthy clients want crypto exposure delivered by existing institutions.
On exchange security, a comparison of Bitget, Bybit and WazirX found that loss absorption capacity and custody architecture determine outcomes. Bitget lost about $387.5 million in September 2026 after attackers exploited a third-party vulnerability to forge withdrawal commands from hot and warm wallets. Cold wallets remained intact and the Bitget Protection Fund, with a balance exceeding $464 million, covered the full impact; Bitcoin withdrawals reopened 85 hours and 29 minutes after detection. Bitget also offered a recovery bounty of 5% of frozen funds plus an additional 5% of recovered funds and used the LazarusBounty coordination tool.
Bybit suffered the largest recorded theft in crypto infrastructure to date in February 2025: approximately $1.46 billion in ETH from a single cold wallet. The exchange did not suspend withdrawals at any point. CEO Ben Zhou used bridge loans to maintain 1:1 backing of client balances. By August 2026, results showed $48.4 million recovered and $30.5 million frozen across more than 28 platforms and custodians, roughly 5.3% of the total stolen. Bybit also launched the LazarusBounty program with a 10% reward and filed a civil lawsuit against North Korea and the Lazarus Group.
WazirX lost between $230 million and $235 million in July 2024, equivalent to 40% to 45% of total platform assets, after a multisignature wallet managed by a third-party custodian was compromised. Despite the lowest absolute loss, WazirX imposed the longest withdrawal suspension: 463 days. Reopening occurred in October 2025 under a court-approved restructuring scheme in which clients became formal creditors and received Recovery Tokens. The stated target aims to recover 75% to 80% of locked funds, and WazirX migrated custody to BitGo and integrated Fireblocks.
The comparison argues that proof of reserves does not answer who pays when assets disappear, and that freezing time is more informative than the amount stolen: Bitget restored withdrawals in 85 hours, Bybit never suspended them, and WazirX kept users waiting 463 days. The report calls for mandatory disclosure of loss absorption capacity, third-party custody exposure, contingent credit lines and insurance coverage.
