Bitcoin and Your Practice: Where Does it Fit?

For the second year in a row, I was invited to speak at the Bitcoin for Advisors conference produced by Coindesk as a member of the FA Advisory Board. And I think I can sum up my main message as a panelist in two words: Don't wait. A confluence of socioeconomic and political factors continues to drive up the price of bitcoin. If a year ago you would have allocated just 2% of a client's portfolio to bitcoin, it would have added five percentage points to the portfolio's return, all else in the portfolio being unchanged. That would have paid for roughly five years of your advisory fees! Yes, bitcoin's value will continue to fluctuate. But the headlines surrounding bitcoin and the interest it's generating among your prospects and clients aren't going away. That's why more and more companies are developing resources that help advisors learn about bitcoin, crypto, and DeFi, as well as building out technology to allocate securely to digital assets. Even if you ultimately decide that bitcoin isn't right for your firm or your clients, you have to learn enough so that you can have an opinion and answer client questions. Otherwise, folks are going to look elsewhere for advice -- and not just about bitcoin.