Morning Minute: Wall Street Loads Up on Bitcoin

Institutions are buying up Bitcoin, but the average fund manager is barely allocated to crypto. What does it mean?

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

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Today's top news:

Some of the biggest players in the world are piling billions into BTC funds.

Yet the average professional fund manager is barely allocated. What gives?

Wall Street and global institutions dramatically increased their Bitcoin exposure in Q2, pouring billions into spot ETFs like BlackRock’s (IBIT) and related crypto equities.

SEC filings reveal that heavyweights like Brevan Howard, Goldman Sachs, Harvard, Wells Fargo, Jane Street, and even Norway’s sovereign wealth fund all boosted their positions, signaling growing comfort with BTC as a core allocation.

Some of the most notable moves:

Yet, the average professional fund manager in the US is barely allocated.

A survey from Bank of America showed that the average fund manager has just 0.3% allocated to crypto.

And a whopping 75% have 0 exposure.

It’s a tale of two groups.

Institutions are clearly piling into BTC and crypto right now, including the biggest names in finance, academia, and even nation-states.

The sheer scale of these positions ($2B+ for Brevan Howard, $3B+ for Goldman, $1.9B for Harvard) validates Bitcoin as an institutional-grade asset.

And it’s becoming clearer that spot ETFs are proving to be the gateway, offering clean, regulated exposure through familiar structures.

Yet, retail is sleeping, and their fund managers aren’t helping.

The fact that 75% of fund managers aren’t allocated at all is not surprising but is also staggering at the same time.

But the good news is - they are coming.

The more that the big names and institutions pile in, the “safer” it becomes for the average fund manager to recommend crypto as an investment.

It’s a lot easier to make safe, standard and consensus plays and collect fees than it is to go out on a limb and make contrarian, conviction calls.

Crypto won’t be contrarian much longer.

And the fund manager pivot is just a matter of time…

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

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