2019 was a good year for crypto, don’t you think? Perhaps prices haven’t returned to the dizzy highs of 2017/2018 -- but price movement went from $3k and change to $14k -- and has held relatively high. Perhaps that’s why a recent Forbes article claimed that more and more financial advisors are saying YES to cryptocurrencies.
2019 was a good year for crypto, don’t you think? Perhaps prices haven’t returned to the dizzy highs of 2017/2018 -- but price movement went from $3k and change to $14k -- and has held relatively high. Perhaps that’s why a recent Forbes article claimed that more and more financial advisors are saying YES to cryptocurrencies.
And 2019 didn’t just have a rise in the BTC price. Fidelity Investments and CME also announced entry into the market. Such formidable and responsible companies brought legitimacy to Bitcoin and in fact the whole asset class. Such developments helped Bitcoin end 2019 up by 90% -- with sustained gains.
How did they determine that? Well, a survey of more than 400 financial advisors conducted by a company dealing with crypto investments and ETF’s -- Bitwise Asset Management -- found that financial advisors are telling their clients to get crypto. The numbers say the number of those FA’s advocating for crypto is 13% in 2020, up from 6% in 2019.
Why? What’s the reason?
Simple: fantastic crypto returns. Going back to that survey we see that 54% of those financial advisors said crypto returns were the reason to go from fiat to digital. Best part? That number rose from 47% since 2019’s survey.
In fact, those figures impressed Matt Hougan, the managing director for Bitwise, that he went on record to say: “The return characteristics are hard to ignore. It’s really hard to find assets not correlated with stocks and bonds that have the potential for higher returns that anyone can access.”
But aren’t financial advisors scared of another crypto crash?
Sure. But no investment is risk-free. And since the 2017 crypto bubble, regulators started looking into cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, and everything else crypto-related. The SEC has already cracked down on scams, hacks, and all the bad actors in the space.
It’s not the Wild West anymore. Sure it’s still fraught with more risks and pitfalls than stocks, bonds, and gold --- but it also offers bigger and faster returns. Especially if you’ve read up on how to keep yourself secure.
And 2019 didn’t just have a rise in the BTC price. Fidelity Investments and CME also announced entry into the market. Such formidable and responsible companies brought legitimacy to Bitcoin and in fact the whole asset class. Such developments helped Bitcoin end 2019 up by 90% -- with sustained gains.
Hougan continued to comment and say “What we are seeing happen is its moving to a broader audience of advisors. The reason that’s happening is it's proven it's not going anywhere. Regulations are clearing up and major firms like Fidelity are coming into the market.”
But what are these financial advisors doing for their clients, exactly? There’s no crypto ETF in the market yet after all. So these advisors are either showing clients how to purchase crypto and keep it safe, or their advising them to invest in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
All that action shows up in the survey, where 64% of the financial advisors expect the price of bitcoin to keep increasing throughout this new decade. That positive sentiment is up 55% from that of 2019’s survey. Meanwhile, 34% think the price of bitcoin -- which is starting 2020 at $8k and change -- should double by 2024.
And who doesn’t want their investments to double? I know I do.
