Vanguard, a financial services firm with over 50 million investors, is blocking its customers from purchasing newly listed Bitcoin ETFs.
The news was circulating on X yesterday, with Vanguard responding to questions about accessing Bitcoin EFTs as follows:
“Thank you for your question! While we continuously evaluate our brokerage offer and evaluate new product entries to the market, these products are not currently available for purchase on the Vanguard platform.”
Vanguard has not been the most supportive of crypto, writing in 2021, “There is no enduring economic or investment rationale to expect cryptocurrencies to generate positive real returns.” At that time, they were of the opinion that their customers should adhere to their decisions as to what they can invest in, and investing in crypto means investing less in shares and bonds.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin has performed well in recent months when compared to traditional securities.
It was pointed out on X that Vanguard previously allowed access to Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, which traded on OTC Markets.
Wow. It is worse than I thought. I called and the answer I received was “Currently we aren’t allowing those to be purchased as it doesn’t fit with Vanguard’s investment philosophy.”
Me: “Ok but you let me buy GBTC in the past.”
Him: “Yes I believe you can only sell that now.”
— Tony Spencer (@notsleepy) January 11, 2024
Some erstwhile Vanguard customers were claiming they were transferring their funds to other trading platforms.
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