The Many Ways to Invest in Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Digital Assets
From Trusts to Bitcoin Mining Companies to ETF Futures, There Are Lots of Options Today
Ric Edelman: I'm getting a lot of questions from folks, a lot of emails and calls from listeners saying, How do I do it? You know, I go to my financial advisor and they tell me that I can't. They tell me they can't help me or they're there's no easy way to buy digital assets that I'm here to tell you is utter and complete and total nonsense. It is incredibly easy today to add digital assets to your portfolio, and any financial advisor who says otherwise is ignorant, arrogant or a flat-out liar because it has never been easier.
Let me just illustrate for you the wide array of ways that you can do this, that anybody can do this. There are publicly traded bitcoin mining companies. These are companies that engage in the complex computer calculations to generate bitcoin bit digital Bitfarms, Argo, Blockchain Bit Mining, Cipher Mining, Galaxy Digital, Hive, Blockchain, Hut 8 Mining, Marathon Digital and Riot Blockchain. These are all publicly traded companies that are exclusively involved in Bitcoin mining. You can buy these stocks like you can buy any other stock as part of your portfolio at any brokerage firm.
And yes, with any financial advisor, there are ETFs that invest in bitcoin futures. They're available from Global X Pro Funds, Valkyrie, and VanEck. These are ordinary, routine ETFs that allow you to engage in bitcoin futures contracts. There are even OTC securities that allow you to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. These are available from Grayscale, Osprey and Bitwise, and they're all available from your brokerage firm.
A proxy for investing in bitcoin directly
There are even publicly traded stocks that are kind of like a proxy for buying bitcoin. Microstrategy is one of the world's largest business intelligence companies, and the company has been buying a lot of bitcoin. They now hold over $7 billion worth of bitcoin in their company Treasury. So these days, analysts figure buying shares of MicroStrategy is pretty much a proxy for buying bitcoin itself. And oh, by the way, you have the revenues of the company to support the investment as well. Tesla is another company that owns a lot of bitcoin, so you can buy MicroStrategy stock or Tesla stock as part of your brokerage account, just like any other stock. In fact, there are now also dozens of ETFs that invest in the crypto community. These are ETFs that buy publicly traded stocks of companies that are building the infrastructure. They're not investing in bitcoin directly. What they're doing is investing in the companies that are helping to build and support the overall crypto community. It's sort of, like we call it, the picks and shovels method of building and buying.
Investing in bitcoin picks and shovels
Where does that picks and shovels name come from? Oh, the old joke goes back to Levi Strauss, you know, back in the California gold rush back in the 1850s; Levi Strauss went west. He went to San Francisco, but he never went digging in a mine for gold. He just sold blue jeans to the gold miners that's known as the picks and shovels strategy. Don't mine for gold. Sell the gold miners products. They needed picks and shovels and blue jeans. So Levi Strauss made more money than any gold miner did. And that's the story. So don't invest in bitcoin. Invest in the companies that are helping to build the technology that are helping to build the businesses around it.
There are a whole bunch of ETFs that you can buy that invest in this asset. The Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators ETF, the symbol is BITQ, First Trust Index Innovative Transaction & Process ETF (LEGR); the SkyBridge Crypto Industry and Digital Economy ETF, the symbol is CRPT; the Siren Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF symbol BLCN; the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF symbol BLOK; the VanEck Vectors ETF symbol DAPP; the Global X Blockchain ETF symbol BKC; the Invesco Al-Arian Galaxy Crypto Economy ETF symbol SATO; and the Invesco blockchain and decentralized commerce ETF symbol BLKC. These are ordinary ETFs that simply focus on blockchain and digital assets - a huge laundry list available to you through any brokerage account and any financial advisor. In fact, there are ordinary ETFs that do own bitcoin. They do it by owning the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, symbol GBTC, which is inside these ordinary ETFs.
Also: The Kinetics Internet ETF,(KINAX), The Kinetic Small Cap Opportunities ETF, (KSCOX); The Ark Next Gen Internet ETF (ARKW); the FOMO ETF (FOMO); the Emerald Financial and Banking ETF (HSSAX); and the Simplify US Equity PLUS Downside Convexity ETF (SPD) Am I totally blowing you away with all these symbols? All these letters, all these initials? Well, that's what I'm trying to do.
I'm trying to simply illustrate for you. But there is a wide array of ETFs. Individual stocks available in the open marketplace that you can buy on your own and a brokerage account. And which, yes, believe it or not, your financial advisor can provide to you too. Just like they provide any other ETF, these are available, too. And I'll take it a step further. There are certain investment management accounts that are generally available only through financial advisers. These are called SMAs (separately managed accounts) and TAMPs (turnkey asset management programs). These SMAs and TAMPs are favored by financial advisors because they're basically customized mutual funds. You know, a mutual fund is where everybody puts their money into a fund, and they all have the identical holdings of the fund with an SMA or a TAMP. It's custom built. Imagine a mutual fund where you're the only owner. That's what SMAs are. And TAMPs, financial advisors love to provide these to their clients, and they're available in the world of bitcoin and blockchain from companies like BitGo, Blockchain Choice, Digital Asset Investment Management, Eagle Brook Advisors, Fidelity, Gemini, NYDIG, and Sarson Funds.
High Net Worth investing options
And if you're an accredited investor, meaning you have a net worth of a million dollars or more excluding your home, there are private placements available for you to invest in digital assets from SkyBridge Capital, Galaxy Crypto, Lotus, Morgan Creek, IDEX, MultiCoin, Pantera and VanEck. There are even these private placements for accredited investors that invest in the picks and shovels route.
There’s also the Pantera Blockchain Fund, the Castle Island Ventures Fund, the Blockchain Capital, and Galaxy Digital. And you can even do all of this in an IRA account through your financial advisor from Bitcoin IRA Blockchains, Choice, Eagle Brook, I Trust Capital, Madison Trust, Prime Trust, and TradeStation. Is that a long enough laundry list for you? Have I kind of blown you away with all that detail? Maybe even board you a little bit?