Buy more Bitcoin says Main Street influencer Ric Edelman as crypto’s acceptance builds
Ric Edelman just made a huge call on crypto.
Edelman isn’t just another financial advisor. He is the founder of Edelman Financial Engines, which manages $287 billion for 1.3 million clients.
More importantly, Edelman is hugely influential among Main Street investors.
He’s a fixture on Barron’s list of top financial advisors, and hosts a nationally syndicated radio show with more than 1 million weekly listeners.
The author of ten bestselling books on how to build and protect wealth, Edelman is often dubbed “Mr. RIA” — a nod to his dominance in the world of registered investment advisors, who are independent professionals who manage money on behalf of clients.
40% allocation
Back in 2021, Edelman said a 1% allocation to crypto was reasonable.
Now Edelman recommends that conservative investors allocate 10% to digital assets, moderate investors assign 25% to the instruments, and aggressive investors devote a whopping 40% of their investment capital to Bitcoin and its ilk.
“Today I am saying 40%, that’s astonishing,” he said on CNBC on June 27.
“No one has ever said such a thing.”
The call caught seasoned analysts by surprise.
Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg Intelligence’s senior ETF analyst, called it the “most important full-throated endorsement” of crypto from a traditional finance figure since Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, accepted Bitcoin as “digital gold.”
“This guy is Mr. RIA,” Balchunas said on X.
A lot has changed. Four years ago, investors were wary of the asset class as the Biden administration cracked down on crypto platforms and the FTX failure showcased the fraud running rampant in the space.
‘Today I am saying 40%, that’s astonishing.’
Ric Edelman
There was a lot of doubt mainstream investors would ever get comfortable with crypto.
“Today, all those questions have been resolved,” Edelman said in his CNBC interview.
Much of the resolution stems from the Trump administration’s end to the crypto crackdown and Congress’ push to bring regulatory clarity to the industry, starting with stablecoins.
Echoes of Larry Fink
Edelman’s remarks are a flashback to those of another TradFi stalwart — BlackRock’s Fink.
In 2017, he called Bitcoin an “index of money laundering.”
Yet five years later, he said Bitcoin would “transcend any one currency” and called it a “digitized version of gold.”
Since then, BlackRock has helped take Bitcoin mainstream by winning regulatory approval for Bitcoin and Ether ETFs and introducing them to the market in January 2024.
The iShares offering is now the No. 1 Bitcoin fund, with $75 billion in net assets.
And Bitcoin, which has hit a series of all-time highs this year, is up 70% in the last 12 months.
That kind of performance is hard to remain wary of for long, even in the traditional world of retail investing.
Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.
