Why Financial Advisors Are So Excited About a Spot Bitcoin ETF

Financial advisors in the US control $8 trillion in assets. Here’s why 77% are waiting for spot Bitcoin ETFs.

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According to surveys of financial advisors, only 12% are currently recommending that clients invest in Bitcoin, while 47% of advisors personally own Bitcoin and a whopping 77% say they are waiting for a spot Bitcoin ETF to become available so they can offer it to their clients.

On this episode of Unchained, Ric Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals and author of “The Truth About Crypto,” explains how this should all lead to high demand once the first spot Bitcoin ETFs become available, although it will take some time for them to allocate. Edelman also discusses how FTX’s implosion impacted advisor perceptions of crypto, why investors have not been that excited by crypto futures ETFs, and which Bitcoin ETF issuers he believes are likely to be the big winners.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights |

How regulatory confusion keeps financial advisors away from recommending Bitcoin to their clients
How the collapse of FTX affected financial advisors’ interest in crypto, according to Ric
How the knowledge level of financial advisors about Bitcoin is "extraordinarily low"
Why 77% of investment advisors are willing to buy a spot Bitcoin ETF
Why there wasn't a huge interest from advisors after the launch of Bitcoin futures ETFs
The percentage of client portfolios that he expects they will allocate to BTC
Why Ric thinks there won't be huge inflows immediately after the approval of spot BTC ETFs
How financial advisors will decide whose ETF to buy, among the 12 potential issuers
Why he believes spot Ethereum ETFs have great growth potential
Why he thinks tokenization might be the "next big thing" that will increase institutional activity

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Guest |

Ric Edelman, Founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals

Previous appearance on Unchained: Financial Advisors Control $5 Trillion in Investor Wealth. Are They Buying Bitcoin?

Links |

Previous coverage on spot Bitcoin ETFs:

How Much Money Will Flow Into Bitcoin ETFs? Here’s One Projection

Why a Spot Bitcoin ETF Will Probably Launch No Later Than January 10

Why It Looks Like BlackRock Could Win America’s First Spot Bitcoin ETF

The Chopping Block: Are We Back? The 'Low IQ' Response to the Potential Spot Bitcoin ETF

Unchained:

BlackRock Files for Spot Ethereum ETF

The Bitcoin ETF Is a Double-Edged Sword

Bitcoin ETFs Explained: What Are They & How Do They Work?

CoinDesk: BlackRock Bitcoin ETF in August Got on DTCC Site That Just Belatedly Moved Markets

Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.

HOST

Laura Shin

Laura Shin is a crypto journalist, host of the Unchained podcast, and author of “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze” (Public Affairs, 2022). Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time, and her podcasts and videos have had more than 15 million downloads and views. Shin has spoken about cryptocurrency at places such as TEDx San Francisco, the International Monetary Fund, Singularity University and the Oslo Freedom Forum.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She lives in New York City.