The rapid rise of investors who made their fortune through cryptocurrency is compelling wealth managers, governments, and tax authorities to confront the ‘uncomfortable reality’ that the asset class does not have a ‘home address’, according to Henley & Partners.

Its report, The Crypto Wealth Report 2025, found that 241,700 individuals now hold over $1m in crypto assets, an increase of 40 per cent over 12 months, including 450 holding over $100m and 36 crypto billionaires.

Henley & Partners highlighted that this new class of wealth had gravitated towards investment migration programmes, seeking stable, progressive jurisdictions that offer regulatory clarity for digital assets and pathways to residence or citizenship.

While around $14.4trn of wealth crossed national borders last year, modern finance architecture assumes that money has a home address, but cryptocurrency does not.

The report highlighted that even the most sophisticated structures require registration somewhere, cryptocurrency negates this requirement, bringing forth a fundamental challenge as to how states conceptualise capital.

“The principle of tax residence, refined over centuries of international agreements, assumes that wealth can be assigned a location based on where its owner resides, works, or incorporates,” said Henley & Partners group head of private clients, Dominic Volek.

“But what happens when wealth exists in a cryptographic dimension that transcends these categories entirely?”

Amid the changing environment, governments are ‘scrambling’ to adapt their frameworks, but implementing reforms requires cooperation from exchanges and service providers, creating regulatory complexity.

The report highlighted that, unlike traditional assets, which leave paper trails through banks and brokerages, crypto can be held and transferred through networks that operate outside of national boundaries or reporting requirements.

“The transformation of cryptocurrency democratises capabilities once reserved for the ultra-wealthy,” Volek stated.

“The same tools that multi-nationals use to shift profits across borders are now available to anyone with an internet connection and basic technical literacy.

“This represents both an opportunity for individual empowerment and a challenge to systems of governance premised on the ability to monitor and tax economic activity.

“As this technology matures and becomes more accessible, we may be witnessing the rise of a ‘digital offshore’ that poses both opportunities and risks: expanding financial inclusion on one hand, while straining long-standing mechanisms of taxation and regulation on the other.

“Investment migration programs offer crypto investors a bridge between these worlds, providing legitimate pathways to diversify not only their portfolios but also their passports.”

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