“Clearly, I wasn’t being bullish enough,” Hougan, CEO of crypto firm Bitwise Investments, reflected wryly. “This is going to be an area that we measure in hundreds of billions of dollars.”
That remains to be seen. These products track the price of bitcoin, which has whipsawed repeatedly since its birth 16 years ago kicked off the crypto era. Some market players say bitcoin is inherently speculative, more akin to art or fine wine than gold and commodities, driving volatility and risk.
The path to wide acceptance as a mainstream asset may be slow and twisting. One milestone came in August. That’s when Morgan Stanley decided to allow its 15,000-strong network of financial advisers to actively recommend at least two of the new bitcoin ETFs – the iShares Bitcoin Trust and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund – to clients.
“It is now unacceptable not to do due diligence and the work of understanding these products,” said John Hoffman, head of distribution and partnerships at Grayscale Funds, whose firm’s Grayscale Bitcoin Trust wasn’t part of the first wave of products added to Morgan Stanley’s platform.
“The risk has kind of flipped for the wealth management channel to the risk of not moving forward.”
Retail investors have dominated flows into the new ETFs. Only a handful of large institutions, like the state of Wisconsin’s investment board and a number of hedge funds, have publicly disclosed positions in regulatory filings.
“The first 50 billion has come from people who understand bitcoin well,” said Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, which has developed the bitcoin index underpinning several of the ETFs.
“Now we’re seeing the next stage: people on the risk committee at Morgan Stanley being dragged, kicking and screaming, to this decision when advisers can’t tell their clients ‘no’ any longer.”
But the fact that first movers like Morgan Stanley are getting so much attention points to how much ground crypto ETFs must cover to become part of the investment mainstream.
“They’re being hailed as cutting edge for doing this, and that reminds us that by being early movers they’re also being seen as being risky,” said Andrew Lom, an attorney at Norton Rose Fulbright whose practice includes fintech.
