Katherine Ross

Ben Strack

Wells Fargo and Bank of America’s Merrill have begun offering bitcoin ETFs to some of their wealth management clients.&nbsp;



Bloomberg first <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/bofas-merrill-wells-fargo-offer-bitcoin-etfs-to-wealth-clients">reported</a> the news, citing unnamed sources. 



“Spot bitcoin ETFs are available for unsolicited purchases through an advisor with Wells Fargo Advisors or through our online WellsTrade platform,” a Wells Fargo spokesperson said.



Spokespeople for Bank of America’s Merrill arm didn’t immediately return requests for comment on the report. 



Brokerage giants Fidelity and Charles Schwab started giving investors access to bitcoin ETFs after their launch on Jan. 11.&nbsp;



Vanguard, meanwhile, has called the investment case for cryptocurrencies “weak,” and users of its brokerage platform were blocked from buying and selling the funds.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Read more:<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/vanguard-disallows-bitcoin-etf-trading"> As spot bitcoin ETF volumes soar, Vanguard is blocking such trades</a>



“Unlike stocks and bonds, most crypto assets lack intrinsic economic value and generate no cash flows,” a Vanguard spokesperson previously told Blockworks. “And cryptocurrencies’ high volatility runs counter to our goal of helping investors generate positive real returns over the long term.”



Ric Edelman, founder of Edelman financial services, has said he expects <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/bitcoin-etf">bitcoin ETFs</a> to ultimately see widespread availability from most registered investment advisers (RIAs) and brokerage firms.



But wirehouses — such as Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo — are likely to be slower to offer such funds, he noted last month.



“Big firms are engaging, but their bureaucracies move slowly,” Edelman said Thursday. “Investment committees, and compliance and risk management officers, aren’t going to capitulate to pressure from the sales and marketing teams.”



On Wednesday, CoinDesk <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/02/28/morgan-stanley-evaluating-spot-bitcoin-etfs-for-its-giant-brokerage-platform-sources/">reported</a> that Morgan Stanley was looking into offering bitcoin ETFs to some customers. A spokesperson for Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the report.&nbsp;



In January, a separate section of Wells Fargo — Wells Fargo Advisors — began offering bitcoin ETFs to customers. However, clients specifically had to seek out such products, according to a <a href="https://www.investmentnews.com/wirehouses/news/wells-fargo-advisors-to-sell-new-bitcoin-etfs-247991">report</a> from Investment News.&nbsp;



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/btc-etf-volumes-soar-blackrock">Bitcoin ETFs have put up record numbers this week</a>, notching new highs for both trade volume and net inflows as bitcoin hovers around $60,000.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-etf-inflows-new-peak">Bitcoin ETF inflows hit new peak Wednesday amid BTC price climb</a>



The clear investor demand for these products has convinced some firms they need to offer them to their clients, Edelman noted.&nbsp;



“The demand, along with rapidly rising prices, are spurring firms to accelerate their activities,” he told Blockworks. “Every day they don’t let their advisers allocate, they get complaints from both reps and clients, which serves nobody’s best interests.”



Updated Feb. 29, 2024 at 2:05 pm ET: Added comment from Wells Fargo.



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Wells Fargo, Merrill to offer bitcoin ETFs to wealth management clients: Bloomberg

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 <ul>
 <li>Michael Roberts will lead Copper’s new prime infrastructure team</li>
 <li>The appointments come after Copper hired a chief operating officer and chief legal officer last month</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Digital asset custodian Copper has hired five former Bank of America Merrill Lynch employees to lead the expansion of its prime infrastructure offerings. 



The appointees include Michael Roberts, Adam Groom, Paul Barham, Ben Carr and Ross Budgen, the company announced Monday. The new additions will report to Copper Chief Revenue Officer Boris Bohrer-Bilowitzki.



Roberts spent 16 years at Bank of America, according to his LinkedIn profile, most recently as a managing director and head of the bank’s prime platform for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He is now set to lead the new prime infrastructure team.



“I have watched Copper from afar for some years now and been continuously impressed at the speed and quality of the solutions they bring to market,” Roberts said in a statement. “Boris and the team understand the technology institutional investors want and need to pursue crypto strategies.”



Groom and Barham, who led relationship management and product development, respectively, for Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s prime platform in EMEA, join Roberts on the Copper team.&nbsp;



Carr and Budgen add expertise in product development, account management and analytics.



The ex-Bank of America Merrill Lynch members will help build Copper’s prime infrastructure offering with custody, collateral management and hedging services, a firm spokesperson told Blockworks in an email.&nbsp;



Founded in 2018, Copper offers custody, trading and settlement solutions for institutional investors across 450 cryptoassets and roughly 45 exchanges.



The planned expansion comes as more prime brokers join the Copper ecosystem and its ClearLoop network, according to the company. Launched in 2020, ClearLoop removes the need for institutional investors to transfer digital assets onto an exchange before being able to trade and includes collateral management for crypto derivatives.



The latest appointments come shortly after <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/latest-in-crypto-hiring-ftx-adds-gaming-partnerships-lead/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the company named</a> Sabrina Wilson as its chief operating officer and Carly Nuzbach Lowery as chief legal officer last month.  



Wilson was most recently global co-head of Citi’s futures, over-the-counter clearing and foreign exchange prime brokerage business. She has also served in various roles at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank.



Nuzbach Lowery joined Copper from Coinbase, where she was associate general counsel in London. Prior to that, she was senior legal counsel at Uber and Barclays.&nbsp;



The move is part of <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=gone+crypto" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a larger migration</a> of talent from traditional finance to crypto. 



“While we have seen a couple of folks make this move, it appears to us — at the moment, at least — far from a trend,” Lawrence Lieberman, senior managing director at recruiting company The Orion Group, told Blockworks. “We have certainly had more crypto-related conversations than expected over the past few months. [There’s] lots of intrigue, but still enough uncertainty to make this a move only for the real risk-takers.”



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