Vanguard Stands Firm on Spot Bitcoin ETF
In January, the United States SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs, with several major asset management firms like BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Grayscale Investments, and WisdomTree leading the way. However, Vanguard has made it clear that it will not participate in the spot Bitcoin ETF market. This decision has garnered criticism from other players in the crypto industry, including Cathie Wood of Ark Invest who called it “terrible” and claimed that Vanguard users would miss out on a decentralized monetary system.
Vanguard’s CEO, Tim Buckley, recently reaffirmed the company’s stance on spot Bitcoin ETFs, stating that they would only consider it if there were significant changes in the asset class. A post about this went viral on X, but financial advisor Jim Bianco noticed that the replies to the post were filled with “bad takes” from the crypto community. In response, he decided to defend Buckley and share his perspective.
Comparison Between BlackRock and Vanguard
Bianco began by comparing BlackRock and Vanguard to illustrate his point. He described BlackRock as an 800-pound gorilla in the ETF market and Vanguard as an 850-pound gorilla. To provide context, he explained that BlackRock typically has around $2.84 trillion in ETF assets and received $2.6 billion in inflows last week out of a total of $18.19 billion.
The replies to this tweet have a bunch of really bad takes from the crypto community.
Some perspective
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If BlackRock is the 800-pound Gorilla in ETFs, Vanguard is the 850-pound Gorilla.As of March 15
BlackRock, $2.84T in ETF assets. Inflows into all their ETFs last week…— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) March 17, 2024
During the same period, Vanguard, with approximately $2.58 trillion in assets, received $29.44 billion in inflows into all its ETFs. Importantly, this did not include spot Bitcoin ETFs. Bianco used this comparison to demonstrate that Vanguard’s refusal to list spot Bitcoin ETFs has not had a negative impact.
Bianco also debunked rumors that Buckley was fired from Vanguard for not adopting spot Bitcoin ETFs. He clarified that Buckley is actually retiring and still has about nine months left as CEO of Vanguard. Bianco emphasized Buckley’s successful track record as one of the most accomplished asset managers in Wall Street history and found it laughable to suggest that missing out on one ETF, which would only account for a small fraction of Vanguard’s total assets exceeding $9 trillion, would lead to his dismissal.
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