With a series of structural trends underway in the investment world, it is not surprising that categories such as private markets, real assets, and the world of crypto investments are featured in the projected futures of several industry players. Imagining the world of wealth management in the United States, the market that sets the roadmap for financial industries globally—in 2035, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company sees that an increasingly multipolar world will require even more diversified portfolios, enhancing the relevance of these asset classes.
“If the current interest in private equity, real assets (such as real estate and infrastructure), shares of unlisted companies, commodities, and digital assets continues, investor portfolios will be broader, more global, and more customized than ever in the next decade,” the firm stated in its report, titled “US Wealth Management in 2035: A Transformative Decade Begins.”
The global context, and particularly the U.S. trajectory, points to a greater need to diversify portfolios, according to the firm. If trends toward multipolarity continue internationally, they forecast, and the dominant position of the U.S. dollar erodes, “the importance of foreign assets, currencies, and commodities, as a hedge against concentration risk and currency depreciation, would only increase.”
Recent data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that the U.S. dollar’s share of global foreign exchange reserves has been declining from its peak and stood at around 57% in the third quarter of 2025, its lowest point in a decade.
For their part, McKinsey highlights that real assets and commodities would act as inflation hedges and sources of “tangible value,” while the role of positions in unlisted companies would be to provide exposure to innovation, through “companies that remain private for longer.”
Tomorrow’s portfolios would also have regulatory implications, naturally. “Interest in digital assets, including tokenized assets and instruments that apply blockchain, would drive the need for an evolution in regulatory approaches,” the consulting firm stated in its report.
Portfolios Increasingly Moving Away from the 60/40 Model
In its view of the wealth management industry in 2035, portfolio construction logic will change in this market environment. In the event that the global economy becomes more multipolar and less dollar-centric, McKinsey expects portfolio construction to become not only more diversified, but also more customized and more integrated with household balance sheets.
The firm’s studies indicate that these growing alternative asset classes continue to gain traction. On one hand, they noted, the crypto asset ETF and ETP market already stands at around $150 billion in AUM. On the other, their expectation is that retail client investments in alternative assets will grow between 1.5 and 2 times over the next five years.
“Advances in tokenization, stablecoins and digital settlement networks, artificial intelligence, and open financial architecture will further democratize access to private markets,” McKinsey predicts.
In this regard, for the consulting firm, the traditional 60/40 portfolio model will need to change over time. The result of this evolution would be multi-asset and multi-vehicle portfolios, with private, public, real, infrastructure assets, digital instruments, and alternative sources of income.
“Investors may incorporate design principles focused on inflation, with real assets and commodities as structural components to preserve purchasing power and hedge against currency deterioration. Portfolios may also incorporate greater exposure to foreign currencies and commodities to mitigate concentration risk and capture new sources of growth,” the firm stated in its report on the wealth management industry.
Along these lines, the consulting firm predicted that direct indexing would replace traditional ETFs. This would be driven by demand for tailored exposures, greater tax efficiency, and portfolios aligned with personal goals and sustainability preferences.
What CEOs Should Know
For those leading wealth management companies in the U.S., there is much to prepare for based on these projections.
The consulting firm expects clients to demand “frictionless access” to a broader, more global, and tax-optimized investment universe, including private, real, digital, and tokenized assets.
“Meeting this expectation will require a redesign of product platforms, data infrastructure, and partnerships,” the firm stated in its report. Thus, CEOs in the sector will need to decide what to offer, how to offer it, and how to integrate and deploy these products.
“This will likely mean investing in technology ecosystems that integrate public, private, and digital positions within unified and tax-optimized frameworks,” they added.
According to McKinsey, in an initial stage industry leaders will determine critical product and experience needs, and the technology, data, and architecture requirements these entail. Later, in the architecture stage, the focus will be on building more technological and other capabilities, defining variables such as in-house versus external solutions and potential partnerships, among others.
