Family Offices Are Buying Crypto — Position Now

TL;DR: B2C2 has appointed Jason Lai, the former Chairman of Schroders Wealth Management Asia, as Senior Advisor in Singapore — a direct play for family office and asset manager crypto allocation flowing through Asia-Pacific. Goldman Sachs data puts roughly one in three family offices worldwide already holding digital assets. For crypto operators still running retail-facing funnels only, this hire is a signal: institutional money is moving, and the distribution channels to reach it are being locked up fast.

The Hire: What B2C2 Actually Bought

Jason Lai is not a crypto native. He is a wealth industry operator who founded Thirdrock Group in 2009, built it into one of Asia’s better-regarded independent wealth managers, and then sold it to Schroders — the FTSE 100 asset manager — in 2019. He ran Schroders’ Asian Wealth Management division as CEO before moving into the Chairman role, which he held until early 2026.

That biography matters because B2C2 is not hiring him to improve its trading technology. The firm already has institutional-grade liquidity infrastructure and recently became a liquidity provider on TP ICAP’s Fusion Digital Assets venue under a matched principal model. What B2C2 does not yet have is the relationship capital inside Asia’s family office and private wealth network. Lai has spent 17 years building exactly that.

B2C2 operates strictly business-to-business. No retail clients. In fiscal year ended March 2024, it generated JPY 57.14 billion in revenue — an 88.5% jump year-on-year — and JPY 8.4 billion in pre-tax profit. SBI Holdings, which has owned B2C2 since 2020, attributed the growth directly to customer base expansion. The Lai hire is the next chapter of that same strategy, pointed squarely at the highest-AUM segment in Asia.

The Market Numbers Behind the Move

Three data points explain why B2C2 is spending senior advisory budget on family office access right now.

First, Boston Consulting Group projects Asia-Pacific assets under management will reach $99 trillion by 2029, anchored by Singapore and Hong Kong. Even a fractional allocation shift toward digital assets inside that pool represents liquidity demand in the billions.

Second, Goldman Sachs research found that approximately one third of family offices worldwide already hold crypto in their portfolios. That number was close to zero four years ago. The adoption curve is steep and it is not slowing.

Third, blockchain-based transaction volumes in Asia grew 69% year-on-year through June 2025 — the fastest growth rate of any region globally, per OECD data cited in B2C2’s announcement. The volume is already there. The institutional distribution infrastructure to serve it is still being built, which is exactly the gap B2C2 is trying to fill before competitors do.

For crypto operators watching this from outside the B2B liquidity space, the numbers carry a different but equally important implication: the client segment that moves markets is not retail. It never was.

B2C2’s Singapore Build-Out: The Full Picture

The Lai appointment does not exist in isolation. B2C2 opened its Singapore office in 2024 and applied for a Major Payment Institution licence from MAS — still pending as of August 2026. Regional CEO Rogers, a 24-year veteran with stints at State Street, Goldman Sachs and UBS, runs operations from that base. Laura Teo joined as Singapore Country Head to lead commercial strategy across Asia-Pacific, bringing experience from Standard Chartered, Barclays and Morgan Stanley.

The pattern is deliberate: hire people with existing trust networks inside the institutions you want as clients, then give them something credible to sell. B2C2’s liquidity infrastructure — execution depth, matched principal model on TP ICAP’s venue, B2B-only positioning — is the product. The team being assembled in Singapore is the distribution engine.

The MPI licence from MAS, once granted, will allow B2C2 to operate with full regulatory standing in one of Asia’s two anchor wealth hubs. That licence is the unlock. Until it lands, the Singapore operation is relationship-building mode. Lai’s role is to make sure the right relationships are warm before the licence gates open.

What This Means for Crypto Marketing Operators

Most crypto operators built their acquisition playbooks around retail: paid social, search, affiliate, referral. Those channels work at scale for consumer-facing exchanges and trading apps. But the B2C2 move illustrates a separate acquisition logic entirely — one where a single senior relationship can unlock tens of millions in institutional flow.

For operators running institutional crypto acquisition programs, the competitive window on Asia-Pacific family office attention is compressing. The firms that move first to build credibility with this segment — through relevant content, targeted outreach, and regulatory positioning — will have a structural advantage over latecomers. Trust takes time to build; it cannot be bought with budget alone when the audience is a family office CIO.

Paid media still has a role. High-precision audience targeting can reach institutional decision-makers through LinkedIn and programmatic channels at CPMs that justify the spend when lifetime value runs into seven figures. But media alone does not close at this level. The conversion path requires credibility signals: regulatory standing, institutional-grade technology, and human relationships that pre-exist the sales conversation — exactly what Lai brings to B2C2.

Operators who have not yet mapped their institutional acquisition funnel separately from their retail funnel are running a mixed strategy that underserves both segments. A structured marketing audit against your current lead mix will usually surface how much high-value institutional intent is arriving through your channels and going unqualified.

Speed matters on qualification. A family office inquiry that sits in a generic CRM queue for 48 hours is a dead lead. AI-driven lead qualification deployed at the top of an institutional funnel can route high-AUM signals to a senior relationship manager in minutes, not days — which is the response standard that serious institutional prospects expect.

The infrastructure for institutional crypto acquisition is not the same as retail. Performance ad management at institutional CPCs, compliance-safe creative, and audience segments built on financial seniority signals rather than interest keywords all require a different build. Operators who treat both segments with the same campaign architecture will get average results across both and win neither.

The Broader Signal for High-Value Verticals

The family office crypto rotation is not a crypto-only story. It is a high-CAC acquisition story that applies equally to institutional forex client acquisition and regulated financial product operators targeting sophisticated investors. The same decision-maker — a family office CIO or a multi-family office investment committee — is evaluating digital assets, forex exposure, and alternative allocations in parallel.

Operators in forex and crypto who are not already positioning for this segment are ceding ground to firms like B2C2 that are investing in the distribution infrastructure right now. The B2C2 Singapore team is not waiting for family offices to find them through a search ad. They are placing people with existing trust relationships inside those institutions and building the pipeline before the demand fully crystallises.

The 69% year-on-year blockchain volume growth in Asia is not a trailing indicator. It is forward signal of where institutional allocation is heading. Operators who plan their acquisition infrastructure around where the market is today, rather than where it will be in 24 months, will spend the next two years catching up.

Originally reported by Finance Magnates, August 2026.