Vanguard Group, which manages over 9 trillion, officially allows customers to trade crypto ETFs such as Bitcoin and Ethereum

Authored by: Blockchain Knight  

On December 2, Vanguard Group—an asset manager overseeing over $9.3 trillion in assets—officially opened its brokerage platform to allow clients to trade cryptocurrency ETFs, including those tracking Bitcoin and Ethereum. This move ended the firm’s long-standing isolation from the $3 trillion digital asset market.  

This reversal has become a milestone event marking traditional finance’s embrace of the crypto economy.  

As a top-tier institution that once firmly resisted cryptocurrencies, Vanguard previously argued that crypto’s high volatility conflicted with its long-term investment philosophy.  

In this shift, Vanguard has stuck to its core positioning: it will not launch its own crypto funds, but only act as a channel to offer regulated products from competitors such as BlackRock and Fidelity. The CEO of Bitwise noted that the market’s muted reaction to this major policy adjustment is precisely evidence that crypto assets have entered the mainstream.  

Regulatory breakthroughs served as the key prerequisite for this shift. The SEC has shifted its stance to support innovation, while court rulings have clarified rules—eliminating the long-standing regulatory uncertainty that plagued Vanguard. The mature framework for Bitcoin ETFs has also significantly reduced the operational risks of offering such products on its platform.  

Naturally, market demand and competitive pressure have been the direct drivers. Research shows that 35% of young wealthy Americans have switched financial service providers because their financial advisors did not offer access to crypto investments.  

BlackRock’s IBIT has become one of the fastest-growing ETFs in the U.S. Currently, the total size of spot Bitcoin ETFs stands at $120 billion, while Ethereum ETFs have reached nearly $20 billion.  

At the same time, a large number of Vanguard clients hold crypto assets outside the firm’s platform, leading to complicated scattered asset management—a competitive weakness for Vanguard. The firm’s brokerage chief admitted that crypto ETFs have withstood the test of market volatility, and changes in investor preferences have prompted the platform to adjust its strategy.  

For the crypto ETF market, the value of Vanguard’s entry lies not in the speed of short-term capital inflows, but in stability.  

Vanguard’s clients are mainly passive, long-term investors. Their initial allocations to crypto ETFs may be limited, but a penetration rate of 0.1% to 0.2% among eligible assets would still translate to billions of dollars in inflows.  

More crucially, its capital has “price-insensitive” characteristics. In a “60/40/1” portfolio—where 60% is allocated to stocks, 40% to bonds, and 1% to crypto—algorithms will automatically increase crypto positions when prices fall to maintain the 1% weight. This creates a structural “buy-the-dip” mechanism.  

Additionally, Vanguard’s trading volume will narrow the bid-ask spread of ETFs, reducing investor costs and improving pricing efficiency. If even a small portion of its clients allocate 1% to 2% of their assets to crypto ETFs, it could generate tens of billions of dollars in new demand.  

Vanguard’s defensive layout not only responds to client needs but also injects long-term stable capital into the crypto market. This move marks that cryptocurrencies have officially transitioned from speculative assets to an optional component of mainstream investment portfolios.  

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