- Seventy percent of advisors view bitcoin as a high-beta tech stock rather than digital gold.
- Panelists recommended indexing for crypto beyond bitcoin and ethereum to avoid selection bias.
- Generational wealth transfer of $60–$70 trillion to younger investors could boost crypto adoption.
Financial advisors gathered at the Exchange conference in Las Vegas heard crypto experts debate a fundamental question that has grown more urgent as digital assets mature: Is bitcoin digital gold, or is it something else entirely?
The March panel, moderated by Nate Geraci, president of NovaDius Wealth Management, brought together experts from Grayscale, Osprey Funds, and Kaiko Indices to tackle practical questions about bitcoin's role in portfolios, which assets beyond bitcoin deserve attention, and how the evolving ETF landscape is changing access for advisors and their clients.
The session moved quickly, reflecting Geraci's observation that "30 minutes in crypto is like three days in traditional finance." To frame the discussion, Geraci opened with a live poll asking attendees how they view bitcoin: as digital gold or as a high-beta tech stock.
The results proved revealing. Seventy percent of advisors selected high-beta tech stock, a sharp departure from the digital gold narrative that has dominated crypto marketing. The disconnect between messaging and market reality set the stage for the panel's central challenge: helping advisors reconcile bitcoin's volatile performance with its positioning as a portfolio diversifier.
Reframing Bitcoin's Identity
Bill Birmingham, managing director at Osprey Funds, pushed back on the binary framing. Bitcoin shares gold's monetary properties, immutability and no counterparty risk, while functioning differently, he said. "It has very strong monetary properties for the internet," Birmingham explained. "It tends to be globally recognized at this point."
The question of performance divergence came up immediately. If bitcoin is digital gold, why has it underperformed actual gold during recent market stress? Birmingham pointed to leverage and use cases. Bitcoin entered recent volatility highly leveraged, used as collateral for various financial transactions, he said. Gold and bitcoin serve different purposes for different market participants, creating periods where their performance diverges sharply.
Krista Lynch, senior vice president and head of ETF capital markets at Grayscale, offered a more flexible framework. Rather than forcing bitcoin into either category, she suggested viewing it as an infrastructure play. "I think that both are very valid answers," Lynch said, noting that bitcoin serves different purposes depending on the investor's circumstances and goals. She characterized it as a way to express conviction in blockchain's underlying framework and related developments like tokenization and stablecoins.
Adam Morgan McCarthy, product specialist at Kaiko Indices, zeroed in on a structural issue that explains bitcoin's unpredictable behavior. "The problem with crypto is that it's still very narrative driven, and that narrative drives liquidity," McCarthy said. When narratives shift, as they did during recent market shocks, liquidity dries up and performance suffers, regardless of bitcoin's theoretical role in a portfolio.
Building Beyond Bitcoin
Moving past bitcoin's identity crisis, the panel turned to how advisors should think about the broader crypto landscape. The group quickly established a hierarchy: bitcoin and ethereum are the "majors," while everything else falls into the altcoin category.
Lynch described Grayscale's internal framework as "bitcoin, ethereum and then beyond that we think of these tokens as alts." But even within the majors, ethereum faces scrutiny. The smart contract platform needs to prove its value by delivering real-world utility and cash flows at the application layer, Birmingham said.
Beyond the top two, Birmingham mentioned solana for its speed and transaction cost advantages. He also highlighted hyperliquid, a protocol bringing perpetual futures and real-world assets on-chain, as an example of innovation happening atop existing blockchain infrastructure.
Where Crypto Fits in Portfolios
The asset hierarchy discussion led naturally into portfolio construction, where advisors face a practical question: Which sleeve funds a crypto allocation?
Many advisors pull from alternatives, but Lynch shared a different approach. She personally funded her crypto index allocation by reducing S&P 500 exposure. "I actually took out of my S&P 500 allocation in order to go into that," she said. "I went out of one equity index and into a crypto index."
For assets outside bitcoin, panelists advocated for indexing to avoid selection bias. McCarthy noted the "Darwinian environment" where leadership changes rapidly year by year, making asset-class exposure more attractive than individual token bets.
Birmingham emphasized fund structure as a critical consideration. He noted that no crypto index fund currently exists in a 40 Act format, though Osprey has filed for such a product. The structure provides "the simplicity of tax reporting with a 1099 as opposed to a K-1" and avoids esoteric tax complications, making it more accessible for advisors and their clients.
Despite spot bitcoin ETFs dominating flows, Lynch expressed optimism about crypto index products. "I would expect a product that's able to give you 90 percent of the returns of the crypto universe with just one fund would be more appealing," she said, attributing slow uptake partly to the newness of generic listing standards that only emerged last summer.
The panel closed with rapid-fire predictions. Birmingham highlighted generational wealth transfer as a catalyst, noting "$60 to $70 trillion U.S. dollars in the country that are going to change hands" to younger investors who view crypto differently. Lynch pointed to tokenization and stablecoin implementation in traditional banking as infrastructure developments that will benefit the space. McCarthy focused on perpetual futures expanding on-chain.
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