HiRibi<\/a> blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEarly Scepticism and First Steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bitcoin,\nwhich was born from the 2008 financial turmoil, marked the beginning of the\ncrypto era. Launched by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin remained\nlargely ignored and dismissed by institutional investors in its earliest days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crypto\u2019s lack of a clear regulatory framework, the anonymity that came with it, and its association with the dark web contributed to the scepticism. In addition, the infrastructure for trading and storing digital assets at the time was rudimentary, making it impractical for large-scale institutional investment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One\nof the earliest moves into crypto by a mainstream financial institution was an\nattempt to file for a Bitcoin ETF by the Winklevoss twins in 2013. The US SEC\ndenied their application in March 2017 in fear of fraudulent and manipulative\npractices. In the same year, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, famously called Bitcoin a\n“fraud” that would eventually “blow up.” Many banks and\nmoney managers avoided crypto, especially with the collapse of Mt. Gox in 2014,\nwhich led to users losing millions in Bitcoin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Turning Point<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Between 2017 and 2020, the crypto market ticked several milestones that began to soften institutional scepticism. For instance, bitcoin skyrocketed to $20,000 for the first time in 2017, forcing many investors to pay attention. Fidelity Digital Assets became among the first players to onboard institutional investors looking to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency market, offering custodial services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The COVID-19 pandemic created a perfect storm for institutional crypto adoption. Unprecedented money printing, zero interest rates, and inflation fears drove institutions to look for alternative stores of value. In July 2020, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published an interpretive letter that authorised national banks to custody crypto on behalf of their clients. This regulatory greenlight was a huge win for the industry, with banks like State Street and Bank of New York Mellon soon announcing digital-asset custody and service offerings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shortly after, in August, MicroStrategy announced converting $250 million of its treasury into Bitcoin, with CEO Michael Saylor declaring it “a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash.” At the time of press, MicroStrategy, which has since rebranded to Strategy, has increased its Bitcoin holdings to 538,000 BTC worth over $50 billion. Strategy remains the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By\nthe end of 2020, more institutions had joined the adoption race, including\nPayPal, which now allowed users to buy, hold, and sell crypto directly via\ntheir user accounts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adoption Accelerates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Institutional\nfloodgates flung open during the 2021 crypto bull run, with more institutional\ninvestors going from onlookers to key industry participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morgan\nStanley announced in March 2021 that its wealthy clients would have access to\ndedicated Bitcoin funds. Later that year, JPMorgan extended five crypto funds,\nincluding Grayscale\u2019s and Osprey\u2019s Bitcoin trusts, to all its wealth-management\nclients. Goldman Sachs relaunched its crypto trading desk after a three-year\npause to support bitcoin futures trading. In addition, the first Bitcoin ETF in\nNorth America was approved in Canada, providing a regulated investment vehicle\nfor institutions. Financial giants like BlackRock and ARK Invest also started\nexploring crypto investment products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nNovember 2021, Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $69,044, fueled by strong\ninstitutional and retail interest. This ATH has since been broken, with Bitcoin\npeaking at $109,079 in January 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mainstream Acceptance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Following\nthe crypto market\u2019s success in 2021, institutional investors were not turning\nback, even with the crypto winter that followed in 2022. By 2023, the race to\nlaunch cryptocurrency ETF products in the U.S. was on. BlackRock, the world\u2019s\ntop asset manager, filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF in June 2023. Soon after, the\nlikes of ARK Invest and Valkyrie Investments joined the race. The SEC approved\n11 U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 following a positive court ruling in\nOctober 2023. These new ETFs meant that institutions could invest in Bitcoin\nwithout having to deal with the hassle of self-custody. Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw\nover $4.6 billion in trading volume within the first 24 hours of trading as\ninvestors poured into them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just\nmonths later, the SEC approved spot Ethereum ETFs as institutional adoption\ndeepened. What\u2019s more, the regulator is set to decide on more ETFs in 2025,\nincluding XRP, Solana, Cardano, and Dogecoin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Final Thoughts: The\nRoad Ahead<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Crypto\u2019s journey to full institutional adoption is far from complete. We are still seeing major developments, including BlackRock’s focus on tokenised assets, which is predicted to become a 16 trillion-dollar market by 2030. This shows there is still more capital set to flow into the market in the coming years, further legitimizing, stabilizing, and making the asset class a standard component of diversified investment portfolios.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cryptocurrency has gone from being completely unknown to a 3 trillion-dollar asset class in a little over a decade. This shift has seen institutional investors, who were heavily sceptical in the early days, commit heavily to the asset and become some of its biggest holders. But how and why have Wall Street and other institutional players gone from crypto\u2019s harshest critics to some of its biggest advocates?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[77,109,71,104,84],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bitcoin","tag-bitcoin-etfs","tag-crypto","tag-hiribi","tag-invest-in-crypto","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1233,"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hiribi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}