According to John Ameriks, global head of quantitative equity at asset management firm Vanguard, Bitcoin is a purely speculative asset and is analogous to a collector's item.
“It's hard for me to assume Bitcoin as anything aside from a digital laboubu,” Ameriks said at Bloomberg's ETFs in Depth conference in New York City.
Labulus are collectible plush toys featuring animals with anthropomorphic features. Despite Ameriks' criticism, he said that under certain circumstances, Bitcoin (BTC) could have value beyond financial speculation in the longer term.
The cryptocurrency could find real-world use cases beyond market speculation in scenarios of high fiat currency inflation or political instability, Ameriks said. These forces are driving the adoption of different currencies.
Bitcoin price history from 2012 to 2025. Source: CoinMarketCap
The comments followed Vanguard's announcement in December that it might allow its customers to trade cryptocurrency funds for the primary time, and underscore analysts and traditional finance executives' doubts about Bitcoin, at the same time as its price hovers above $90,000 with 16 years of network availability.
Vanguard finally makes the crypto leap
Vanguard was the last of the massive three asset management firms, which include BlackRock and State Street, to permit its clients to own crypto investment vehicles.
“We allow people to carry and buy these ETFs on our platform in the event that they wish, but they achieve this at their very own discretion,” Ameriks said, adding that Vanguard “is not going to provide investors with advice on whether to purchase or sell or which crypto tokens they need to hold.”
ETFs remain a vital source of capital inflows into digital asset markets. Source: Farside Investors
The policy change gives Vanguard's over 50 million customers access to crypto markets and creates one other bridge between traditional finance and digital assets by funneling money into crypto networks. The fresh capital injections from Vanguard's clients could drive up the costs of cryptocurrencies tied to exchange-traded funds.
