When FTX collapsed in 2022, the headlines were dominated by the names of venture funds that had backed the company: Sequoia, SoftBank and Temasek. The greater losses, however, fell on around a million account holders who had entrusted their assets to a platform that presented itself to be a safe custodian.
The collapse exposed the fragility of one of crypto’s largest exchanges but also the risks of holding digital assets in an industry where standards of governance and custody are still evolving.
While the appetite for cryptocurrency and digital assets has not completely diminished, the expectation of how they should be held has changed, with investors increasingly expecting these assets to be subject to the same disciplines as the rest of their wealth: segregated custody, independent custodians and regulated institutions, rather than assets sitting on an exchange’s balance sheet.
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Themes in 2026
Evolving expectations
A shift in market expectations is bringing a different kind of investor into the market. As Anatoly Crachilov of Nickel Digital Asset Management says, the regulatory shift in the United States has ‘drawn onto the tape’ a category of investor that had been sitting on the fence, while the UK has begun to relax its approach to retail crypto investment.
Racheal Muldoon of Ogier tells Spear’s that the families entering the space are not approaching crypto as a separate world, but as another asset class to be structured and passed on, alongside the rest of their world. She says that much of this change is being driven by the Great Wealth Transfer and the next generation of heirs – particularly eldest daughters – who are taking active roles in shaping family wealth and are more open to incorporating digital assets into their future structures.
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The law is catching up
The legal framework around digital assets, as of 2026, remains unfinished. Regulation has moved more slowly than the market, leaving advisers to work through questions of recovery and ownership. Jill Lorimer of Kingsley Napley, whose work includes guiding crypto firms through FCA registration, points to a constraint: ‘People at the FCA who understand crypto will generally spend a lot of time there, but then they can go out into industry and frankly make more money. So the FCA have always historically had a bit of a resourcing problem.’
The challenge is not only regulatory, Amy Harvey of LK Law notes, as even experienced investors are becoming targets for increasingly sophisticated attacks: ‘These clients are finding themselves the victims of quite sophisticated attacks now, and they can come from all angles and backdoor third-party attacks.’
To combat the rise of malicious attacks, Dorothy Siron of Edmonds Marshall McMahon argues that the courts must continue to adapt: ‘We need the court to be more educated about the ways that frauds happen and to be brave enough to give court orders. We want a stronger judiciary.’ The unresolved question however is where digital assets sit in law – for succession, taxation and enforcement – and those solutions are likely to emerge through cases that set precedent rather than legislation.
Advisory work
A private client with significant digital asset exposure now encounters the same questions as any other form of wealth – and some new ones. How should these assets be held, taxed and passed on? What happens if it’s stolen? The answers sit across several disciplines: private client lawyers, tax advisers, investment managers, regulatory specialists, litigators and forensic accountants.
Racheal Muldoon of Ogier advises on the structuring and succession of digital wealth; Anatoly Crachilov of Nickel Digital Asset Management approaches crypto from an investment perspective; James Brockhurst of Forsters works through regulatory and private-client questions; Amy Harvey of LK Law and Dorothy Siron of Edmonds Marshall McMahon deal with recovery and fraud; and Frédéric Buret of Recoveris focuses on forensic tracing.
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- Methodology
- The best cryptocurrency and digital asset advisers: some names to know
- The best cryptocurrency and digital asset advisers: the complete list
- Contact us
Methodology
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its rankings of the leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submission forms, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, reviewing data from third-party sources, gathering references and recommendations, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds of interviews.
Advisers are evaluated using a proprietary scoring system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores feed directly into each new set of rankings in the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices are published first online (according to the research calendar) and then in print. Print publication takes the form of the annual Spear’s 500 directory, which includes the top advisers in every index.
[See also: A guide to the Spear’s 500: Everything you need to know]
Each featured adviser is profiled on spears500.com. The site allows users to search the Spear’s database of more than 4,000 entities to find one (or more) to meet their specific requirements by filtering for specific attributes such as an adviser’s location, their specialist expertise and information about their client base.
The best cryptocurrency advisers: some names to know
Dorothy Siron
- Focus: Cryptocurrency fraud
- Position: Partner
- Firm: Edmonds Marshall McMahon
Dorothy Siron spent three decades in Hong Kong, working on civil fraud, asset-tracing and recovery, and commercial disputes spanning China, Southeast Asia and beyond, before joining Edmonds Marshall McMahon in London in May 2026.
In one notable case, a client invested $20 million in cryptocurrency in the company of a woman he was in a relationship with; but, soon after, she absconded with the funds. ‘You have to convince the court that this isn’t love gone wrong or a bad company investment,’ Siron explains. Ultimately, she was able to trace the funds and recovered nearly all of them for her client within two years.
Siron often works alongside forensic investigators to map stolen crypto on the blockchain. Her role is one she considers to be of increasing importance. In fraud cases relating to cryptocurrency, she tells Spear’s, the police tend to pursue criminals rather than focus on restitution. ‘So who helps the client recover? The lawyers and the forensics.’
Read Dorothy Siron’s full profile on Spears500.com
Frédéric Buret
- Focus: Digital asset investigations
- Position: Director
- Firm: Recoveris
Described by one industry observer as their first port of call for crypto tracing, Frédéric Buret is a director at Recoveris, a Switzerland-based digital asset recovery boutique whose team comprises crypto investigators, former law enforcement agents and lawyers.
Based in London, Buret specialises in cryptocurrency tracing and digital asset investigations: when crypto is stolen, he follows it across the blockchain from wallet to wallet until it surfaces somewhere a court order can reach. His tracing reports underpin legal proceedings brought by victims and their lawyers, who cannot freeze or recover what has not first been found.
His casework spans investment scams, phishing attacks, a $4 million hack on a gambling platform and crypto insolvencies.
Read Frédéric Buret’s full profile on Spears500.com
Jill Lorimer
- Focus: Regulatory investigations
- Position: Partner
- Firm: Kingsley Napley
Jill Lorimer joined Kingsley Napley in 2007, made partner in the criminal litigation team in 2014, and spent a year on secondment inside the FCA’s criminal prosecutions unit, where she gained insight into how the regulator thinks and operates.
She puts this experience to good use, guiding crypto firms seeking to do business in the UK through the regulatory requirements. The process is about to toughen, Lorimer explains, as light-touch registration gives way to similar regulatory authorisation that banks and other traditional financial companies already face.
Her test for clients is simple: ‘If I don’t understand what you’re doing, then the FCA won’t understand either,’ she tells Spear’s. Lorimer’s team also traces funds on the blockchain and evidences their legitimate source, producing the paperwork that lets crypto wealth buy UK property.
Read Jill Lorimer’s full profile on Spears500.com
Marc Jones
- Focus: Digital asset disputes
- Position: Partner
- Firm: Stewarts
Oxford graduate Marc Jones joined Stewarts in 2009. Since becoming a partner in 2013 he has developed a varied client base which includes financial institutions, states and state entities, companies and HNW private clients. Jones specialises in a range of high-value matters involving financial and banking disputes, including fraud, professional negligence, asset tracing and contentious insolvency.
He has made a considerable impact through his work in cryptocurrency disputes. In 2019 he acted in the Robertson v Persons Unknown case, where Bitcoin was treated as legal property by the High Court for the first time and the claimant in the case recovered £1 million of Bitcoin.
Jones also contributed to a well-received report titled Blockchain: Legal and Regulatory Guidance.
Read Marc Jones’ full profile on Spears500.com
The best cryptocurrency and digital asset advisers: the complete list
Click on the individual names to be directed to more detailed profiles on spears500.com. The table is ordered by ranking and then alphabetically.
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