Wall Street’s Biggest Wealth Managers Are Starting To Recommend Bitcoin. The Allocation Debate Is Changing.

Merrill, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are beginning to recommend Bitcoin allocations to clients, according to remarks highlighted by Twenty One Capital’s leadership in a video circulating Thursday. The claim points to a consequential shift in wealth management: Bitcoin is moving from an investment clients ask permission to own toward one that major financial institutions may increasingly suggest belongs in a portfolio.

The report offers no allocation percentages, implementation details or formal policy announcements from the firms named. That distinction matters. An individual advisor discussing Bitcoin with a client is different from a wealth-management division approving the asset for discretionary portfolios, and different again from incorporating it into centrally managed investment models. But the fact that these institutions are being identified as participants in the allocation conversation illustrates how much the industry's posture has changed.

The timing is significant for Twenty One Capital, whose business is built around the proposition that Bitcoin will become a larger part of the institutional financial system. The company holds one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin treasuries, although its new CEO, Raphael Zagury, has acknowledged that simply accumulating the cryptocurrency is no longer enough to justify the company's existence. In August, he outlined plans to develop operating businesses, capital-markets services and eventually Bitcoin-backed lending.