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Payward has released new data on Australian crypto account holdings, showing institutions hold a much larger share of stablecoins than consumers.
Analysis of hundreds of thousands of Australian consumer and institutional accounts on Kraken found stablecoins made up 16.8% of institutional crypto holdings, compared with 3.6% for consumers.
The data also showed a sharp difference in portfolio composition. Bitcoin and Ethereum accounted for 63% of consumer holdings, compared with 45% for institutions.
Across consumer accounts funded at both measurement points, 86% either maintained or increased their crypto positions over the previous 12 months. Within that group, 43% accumulated more crypto when measured at constant prices, stripping out changes caused by asset price movements.
The analysis covered funded Australian consumer accounts and funded institutional primary accounts on the Kraken platform as of 28 September 2026. Year-on-year allocation changes were calculated using matched cohorts of consumer and institutional accounts present at both measurement dates.
"Stablecoins now represent close to one-fifth of aggregate institutional crypto holdings on Kraken in Australia. Institutions maintain a much larger stablecoin allocation, which can give them greater flexibility to deploy capital," Jonathon Miller, Managing Director, Australia and Rest of World at Payward, said.
The figures suggest institutions are keeping a larger pool of liquid crypto-linked assets alongside positions in other tokens. Consumers, by contrast, remain concentrated in the two largest cryptocurrencies by market value.
Holding patterns
Consumer behaviour over the period showed a strong bias towards holding rather than active trading, with many users adding to positions over time instead of reducing exposure.
Miller said: "Most consumer accounts, meanwhile, maintained or increased their crypto positions over the past 12 months, with many utilising dollar-cost averaging strategies. In fact, our data shows that, when it comes to recurring purchases, the median contribution per user per active month increased from A$173 during the period following 28 September 2025 to the end of the year, to A$191 in 2026 up until 28 September."
"That is a significant behavioural difference. It shows that many consumers are treating crypto as a longer-term holding, rather than an asset class they need to trade constantly. The old narratives of crypto hold strong," he added.
The company also identified concentration in larger portfolios. Among consumer accounts valued above A$250,000, bitcoin represented an average of 49% of crypto holdings.
Institutional accounts with more than A$250,000 in crypto holdings were also concentrated, though in a different way. In that group, the largest single holding represented an average of 63% of the portfolio.
Larger accounts
These figures indicate that bigger balances do not necessarily lead to broader diversification within crypto portfolios on the platform. Instead, both consumer and institutional users appear willing to run relatively concentrated positions, though the assets they favour differ.
Miller said: "Portfolio size does not automatically result in investors spreading their exposure across dozens of assets, despite what the financial advice industry preaches. Among larger consumer portfolios, Bitcoin alone accounted for almost half of holdings on average. For our institutional clients, their holdings with Kraken are likely to be diversified across different asset classes elsewhere."
Portfolio allocations were calculated as a percentage of crypto holdings on the Kraken platform, while stablecoin balance figures were denominated in Australian dollars.