In a June, Edelman shook up the investment world by recommending 10%-40% crypto allocations in portfolios.
The founder of the influential Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals views the current environment as an opportunity to buy the asset.
Bitcoin’s reaction to macroeconomic uncertainty along with more traditional assets is a sign of its maturity, he said.
Ric Edelman isn’t budging from the groundbreaking cryptocurrency investment strategies he urged six months ago, even as Bitcoin lingers far from its record-breaking heights.
The founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals views the current environment—with Bitcoin falling back below $90,000 going into the weekend—as an opportunity to buy the asset before it inevitably regains momentum.
“Right now, the message is simple and compelling,” he recently told Decrypt. “If you liked Bitcoin at $100,000 or $125,000, you have to love it at $85,000. This is the same message that advisors give their clients anytime the stock market declines, and we have seen 20%-30% declines in the S&P 500 as well.”
He added: “We know that market periods of significant decline represent buying opportunities for long-term investors. The same is true here for crypto.”
In a white paper released in June, Edelman recommended a 10% crypto allocation for conservative investors and up to 40% for more aggressive portfolios, shaking up a financial advisory world that has been slow to embrace digital assets.
Ric Edelman. Photo: Ric Edelman
The co-founder of Edelman Financial Engines—a nearly $300 billion asset manager—had previously advocated for “low single-digits” investments in crypto, but said he had been swayed by “dramatically improved regulatory clarity and institutional engagement in crypto.”
Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas called Edelman’s remarks “the most important full-throated endorsement of crypto from [the] TradFi world since Larry Fink.”
Holy smokes. This is the arguably the most important full throated endorsement of crypto from TradFi world since Larry Fink. This guy is Mr RIA. Manages $300b for 1.3million clients. Tops the Barron’s list of America Advisors regularly. https://t.co/3GlOpmB03z
At the time of the paper’s release, Bitcoin had surged more than 32% over a 10-week period on its way to multiple record highs, as the Trump administration’s digital asset policies reshaped the investment landscape, BTC exchange-traded funds mushroomed, and treasuries gobbled up the asset.
But the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has recently struggled to break $90,000, falling as low as $81,000 in November as investors wrestled with macroeconomic turmoil that has weighed on risk assets. Edelman, though, has remained unbowed.
He said that institutional investors’ ongoing optimism about cryptocurrencies and the widening adoption of blockchain networks underpinning these assets trumped concerns about crypto markets’ price swoon. He noted Harvard University’s regulatory filing last month showing a $116 million position in the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), the largest ETF tracking the market, among other institutions investing in crypto and related products.
“We are seeing massive levels of engagement and adoption, not just by traditional finance, but the entire Fortune 500,” Edelman said. “This can only serve to support and increase prices over the next several years.”
Edelman called current price trends “routine” and no different than for other assets vulnerable to wider forces that prompt investors to take profits after lengthy price climbs. He concurred with other market observers who believe BTC sank as some early whales looked to cash in on early bets.
In his white paper, Edelman predicted that Bitcoin would reach a $19 trillion market capitalization—up more than 955% from its current value of nearly $1.8 trillion—and that given rising life expectancies, even 90-year olds should consider exposure to digital assets with their decisions based on risk tolerance, not age.
He said that Bitcoin’s struggles are, if anything, a sign of its maturing.
“It’s testimony to the fact that being lumped together with all other asset classes demonstrates better than ever that Bitcoin has become a mainstream asset, and that institutional investors are now treating Bitcoin the same way they’re treating everything else,” he said. “That would not have been the case five, 10 years, or 15 years ago. The fact that it’s the case today demonstrates the stability, permanence, and continued growth of crypto adoption by the institutional market.”
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