Swan Bitcoin Moves Into TradFi With Platform for Financial Advisers

Bitcoin financial services firm Swan Bitcoin is releasing a new product that’s targeting TradFi.

Called Swan Advisor Services, it provides a platform for financial advisors to allow clients to purchase bitcoin, the firm said Wednesday.

Andrew Edstrom, managing director of Swan Advisor Services, told CoinDesk that its latest product expands its reach to institutional clients and investors looking to step into crypto.

“Most advisers are still getting up to speed on [bitcoin] in terms of their research and their knowledge of it. This is really an untapped market,” Edstrom told CoinDesk. (Edstrom is a regular contributor to CoinDesk's Crypto for Advisors newsletter.)

Swan Advisor Services users can transact and manage their clients’ bitcoin positions on the platform, as well as access educational content to help onboard clients new to crypto. All tokens are held by crypto firm Prime Trust.

Swan has been bolstering its line of bitcoin products to make investment opportunities accessible to both crypto natives and crypto-curious investors. In March, it teamed up with Prime Trust to support its crypto retirement product, while in May, it kicked off the Bitcoin Benefit Plan to provide bitcoin bonuses to employees of participating companies.

The traditional finance world has been moving into crypto primarily through bitcoin (BTC) investments; however, Ethereum’s upcoming Merge may push TradFi into crypto through ether (ETH)-based products. Swan offers only bitcoin products, and Edstrom told CoinDesk that he views the Merge as an event that will make it easier for investors to differentiate between bitcoin and ether.

“There's likely to be a very large component of the advisor space that realizes that bitcoin makes a lot more sense for their clients than Ethereum or than a basket of assets,” Edstrom said.

Swan has already onboarded five advisors to its product ahead of its release date. One of those advisors, Isaiah Douglass, partner at Vincere Wealth Management, told CoinDesk in an email that he believes institutional adoption is well on the way, and he hopes to help onboard his clients to the asset.

“Bitcoin is ultimately going through the monetization process and I believe it will be the choice of money worldwide in my lifetime,” Douglass said.