Claim of Bitcoin for the big four managing 10 trillion dollars

Matt Hougan, the chief investment officer of asset management firm Bitwise, stated that the four major brokerage firms Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and UBS, with total client assets exceeding $10 trillion, will be ready to trade Bitcoin spot ETFs by the end of the year.

Hougan, which has a wide network of financial advisors, expects these institutions, known as 'wirehouses', to increase the availability of ETFs by approximately four times. According to the Bitwise manager, this development will enable record investments in ETFs in 2025.

Hougan previously thought that wirehouses could support Bitcoin ETFs in the first half of 2024. Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas also expressed a similar view. Balchunas likened the influence of these institutions to placing a product on the shelves of very large supermarkets, stating, "This kind of visibility and access will provide significant benefits."

Morgan Stanley allowed some advisors to recommend Bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity last August, but kept it quite limited. Hougan states, "Overall, these platforms have not yet enabled their advisors to easily access Bitcoin ETFs, but this situation is changing rapidly."

Published: April 30, 2025 19:53