Despite customer dissatisfaction and persistent queries regarding the firm’s plans to provide Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Vanguard Group CEO Tim Buckley has maintained his strong stance.Buckley warned against adding Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs in retirement investment plans in a recent Vanguard video, citing the asset’s volatility.
“We don’t believe it belongs, like a Bitcoin ETF belongs in a long-term portfolio of someone saving for their retirement. It’s a speculative asset.”
Buckley also argued that Bitcoin’s utility as a store of money is unclear, noting that Bitcoin suffered a large decrease with the stock market crisis in 2022.
“When stocks got hammered in the recent crisis, Bitcoin went right with them. And so it is speculative. Really tough to think about how it belongs in a long-term portfolio,” he stated.
Bitcoin hit an all-time high of more than $69,000 in 2021, which was recently topped by $73,835.However, in 2022, Bitcoin witnessed a dramatic collapse, falling below $16,000.The S&P 500 plummeted 21% in the first half of 2022, with much of the blame attributed to interest rate rises by the United States Federal Reserve.Despite concerns about when the investing business would offer spot Bitcoin ETFs to their customers, Buckley stressed that the firm will not modify its position “unless the asset class changes.”
Following the approval of 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on January 10, Vanguard announced its decision not to provide the product to its consumers.Cointelegraph reported on January 12 that Vanguard had ‘”no plans to offer Vanguard Bitcoin ETFs or other crypto-related products.”Existing consumers, notably those in the cryptocurrency field, reacted strongly against the decision.Yuga Cohler, Coinbase’s senior engineering manager, was among many who announced that he will be switching his Roth 401(k) investments at Vanguard to Fidelity, one of the accepted spot Bitcoin ETF candidates.
“Vanguard’s paternalistic blocking of Bitcoin ETFs does not fit in with my investment philosophy,” Cohler stated on X.
Even though the company has no plans to offer a cryptocurrency product, it has significant indirect exposure to Bitcoin because it is MicroStrategy’s second-largest institutional holding.On January 12, Cointelegraph revealed that Vanguard owned 8.24% of the firm.