My Thoughts on the Announcements from Vanguard and BofA

By Ric Edelman | Founder, Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals
December 3, 2025

This past week brought crypto announcements from two major TradFi firms, Vanguard and Bank of America. Both represent big bullish news for bitcoin and other major digital assets.

First, Vanguard. After notoriously declaring last year that it would never allow its brokerage customers to buy the bitcoin ETFs, the firm has reversed its position – thanks to its new CEO, Salim Ramji, who’s far more level-headed than his predecessor. And it’s not just the move that’s smart. So is the timing. By making bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and other crypto ETFs available to its 50 million customers, Vanguard is letting them buy while crypto prices are sharply below their all-time highs. Vanguard customers who take quick advantage of this will find themselves sitting on nice profits in the future – and Vanguard will look great.

The day after Vanguard’s news, Bank of America announced that its financial advisors can recommend a 1% to 4% crypto allocation, starting January 5. BofA joins Morgan Stanley, Schwab and Fidelity – the latest example of the mainstreaming of crypto.

Consider the impact of these announcements: BofA’s 19,000 advisors (including its Merrill Lynch unit) manage $4.6 trillion. Vanguard custodies $11 trillion for its 50 million customers. If just 2% of these assets are placed into bitcoin, we’re talking flows of $320 billion into bitcoin. That would increase its market cap by almost 20% – representing a similar increase in price, since bitcoin’s supply is fixed. It’s therefore impossible to view these announcements as anything other than highly bullish for crypto.

As big as these announcements are, we’re still in the early stages. Most of TradFi is still not yet engaging; only a tiny fraction of the world’s pension funds and endowments have allocated to crypto. But all of them are engaged in due diligence, and they’re expected to start allocating next year. When they do, watch for unprecedented asset flows that will take crypto prices to all-time highs. You can wait for that to happen, or you can allocate now, before it does.

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