00:00Vanguard, I mean, people know Vanguard for like very simple index funds, like nothing fancy.
00:07That's what the company was founded on, saved investors a lot of money.
00:10You can read Eric Beltranas' book all about it.
00:13But now they're going to allow crypto?
00:15So this is why it's such a big thing, because it's not a yes yet, but it's not a no anymore.
00:20And for the longest time, they were like, no, we won't be adding it.
00:23It's former CEO Tim Buckley said we'll never add Bitcoin funds.
00:26Its late founder, Jack Bogle, has said to avoid Bitcoin like the plague.
00:29And now that they're considering it, it's already such a big deal, because Vanguard is known to be one of the last holdouts.
00:35It's just an asset manager with $10 trillion in assets that they manage with 50 million investors.
00:40So really, Eric Beltranas, to your point, I did read his book, and he had a quote in the story saying that Vanguard people, they can hold boring vanilla funds, but they would also like some fun stuff like Bitcoin.
00:51And he told me, which didn't make it to the story, that Vanguard investors are smart.
00:54They can make the choice themselves.
00:56So the story here is that it may allow trading of crypto ETFs on its platform, but that's not the same thing as Vanguard launching its own Bitcoin ETFs or crypto ETFs, right?
01:05It's very different.
01:06I think that's like the other step.
01:08But for now, at least, if you're a Vanguard investor and you want to buy Bitcoin ETFs, you don't want to go to another platform.
01:13And nearly every major platform now offers Bitcoin ETFs.
01:16So I feel like this is a sign of times, a big shift, but still, we're not sure.
01:21But when we talked to Vanguard, they said they're listening to clients, they're talking about it.
01:25So again, they're opening the window by a little.
01:28Yeah, I mean, to me, what it sounds like is they saw demand from clients and they want to make sure that clients stay on their platform to do what they want.
01:36Don't wander off the ecosystem, right?
01:37Exactly.
01:37Is that a fair assessment?
01:39Eric Beltunas, again, he was the one who I talked to for this story.
01:42He said that, you know, if Bitcoin ETFs weren't as successful, we may not be seeing this.
01:45But it's so hard to ignore the astounding success.
01:48I mean, altogether, the cohort has around $142 billion in assets.
01:52$80 billion of those is from BlackRock.
01:54$20 billion alone came this year.
01:55So you don't even see the demand abating.
01:58And with the SEC now, you might see more cryptocurrency ETFs to come.
02:01And to close the door in that money-making big, like, it's just lavishing capital.
02:07Investors lavishing capital into these ETFs is a big, maybe, mistake, according to some.
02:12I wonder to how much of a role the CEO, Salim Ramji, plays here in Vanguard's, not changing his mind, but, you know, being a little bit more open to the idea of crypto and blockchain.
02:23Definitely big.
02:24I'm glad you brought that up because Salim Ramji, he's a BlackRock veteran.
02:27To many, he was one of the people in charge or led the charge for the iBit to launch.
02:31So he has expressed openness with blockchain and Bitcoin.
02:34And he's the first outsider to ever become the CEO of Vanguard.
02:37So this is definitely, potentially, according to insiders.
02:40We don't have proof yet.
02:41Is it a little risky because in just, you know, 20 seconds here, if for some reason we see a widespread decline in crypto asset prices, people could say, hey, why did you let us do this?
02:54Could be, but that's the beauty of investing.
02:56You have people the choice to make that for themselves.
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