Boomers Are About to Eat Your Bitcoin 🍔

Morgan Stanley tells wealth advisors to pitch Bitcoin – a first for major Wall Street firms. Here's all you need to know.

Hey, it’s Marc. ✌️

This is part of our macro briefing for PRO readers, where we cover the most important macro events affecting Web3. Let’s jump in:

Morgan Stanley now allows its army of 15,000 wealth advisors to pitch Bitcoin ETFs to some clients – a first for a big bank.

Why it matters: The train is leaving the station.US wealth advisors manage nearly $30T. Morgan Stanley is one of the pre-eminent wealth management firms globally with $1.5 trillion in assets.

Zooming out: It took Morgan Stanley more than 10 years to get to this point.

In March 2014, they held a microfinance bitcoin event at its New York headquarters, when CEO James Gorman said the virtual currency is "totally surreal".

How did we get here?

Morgan Stanley responded to inquiries and "demands from clients".

Even better: They don't take any risk, but pitch for management fees.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan , Bank of America , and Wells Fargo still prohibit their financial advisors from promoting Bitcoin ETFs.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan, still calls Bitcoin “worthless” and a “hyped-up fraud”.

But not for long. We're just getting started.

Many more wealth managers will follow suit.

This boosts confidence among retail investors, as it opens the floodgates for new capital. IBIT, a spot Bitcoin ETF launched by BlackRock, has pulled in a record-setting $20B in inflows in 6 months largely WITHOUT the $30T US Wealth Advisory market thus far.

Also, it's an opportunity for founders to target these "boomers" with crypto products that blend traditional finance with DeFi.

What’s the take-away for brand leaders?

Legitimization. Crypto is not a sideshow anymore. Whether it’s payments, digital identity. onchain loyalty assets or IP – you can’t ignore it anymore.

That’s it for now.

– Marc

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This is part of our macro briefing for our PRO Web3 leaders & brands.

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