EXCLUSIVE- Cryptocurrency is not having a great year. And while many institutions (including big banks) have distanced themselves from the phenomenon, roboadvisors in the country remain divided in their opinion on cryptocurrency as an investment.
Take New York-based financial adviser Betterment, for instance. The company’s CEO Jon Stein told Bank Innovation that while he is paying attention to the space, he has no plans of including cryptocurrency as an investment option on the Betterment platform…yet.
“Clearly, some are doing crypto,” Stein said. “My sense is that as a short-term arbitrage, it might totally blow out or it might become a bigger asset class than it is today. If that happens, then you will be able to trade it through ETFs…But right, now we don’t know what will happen.”
Financial-adviser Acorns puts it more bluntly on its website:
We can’t advise you on whether you personally should invest in cryptocurrency.
Our portfolios are designed to help you realize maximum reward over time, for minimum risk — through proven strategies like Modern Portfolio Theory. Because the value of cryptocurrency can fluctuate dramatically in a day, it’s a speculative investment, and we don’t want to gamble with your money.
Acorns did not respond to requests for comments.
But then there are other investment services providers, like Robinhood and CoinBase, that allow for cryptocurrency investing.
In fact, Robinhood came to that conclusion only a few weeks ago, when in late February it launched cryptocurrency trading to users in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, and New Hampshire. Robinhood currently allows investors in these states to buy and sell bitcoin and Ethereum on its platform. All Robinhood users can track prices of over a dozen cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin cash, litecoin, XRP, ethereum classic, zcash, monero, bitcoin gold and dogecoin.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the larger banks in the country, the opinion on cryptocurrency is more coherent, as more and more of them are coming to the same conclusion. BofA, Citi, Chase, Discover, Capital One have all banned cryptocurrency purchase on its cards. Wells Fargo, however, has not issued any such ban.
Stay tuned…






