Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley Says World's Largest Investment Firms Fully Entering Crypto Space
Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise, pointed out that the world's largest investment firms, including Schwab, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and BlackRock, have deeply engaged in crypto assets. This statement emphasizes that the integration of traditional finance into crypto is irreversible.
Recently, Schwab announced the launch of Schwab Crypto services, which will soon offer retail clients spot trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum; Fidelity provides direct trading and custody through its Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund and Ethereum Fund, as well as the Fidelity Crypto platform; Morgan Stanley Investment Management launched a low-fee Bitcoin Trust ETF (MSBT), attracting over $100 million in inflows in its first week; BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust continues to see significant net inflows and is expanding its Ethereum products.
Source: Public Information
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Horsley's observation reflects a structural shift of crypto assets from marginal speculation to a mainstream alternative asset class. Major brokerages and asset management giants are gradually connecting the trillions of traditional client asset pools to the crypto market through ETFs, direct trading, and custody services, driven primarily by client demand and competitive pressure rather than mere regulatory easing. This integration accelerates the reallocation of capital from traditional fixed income and equities to digital assets, especially in a high-debt environment where the long-term depreciation risk of sovereign currency instruments increases the relative attractiveness of hard assets.
This trend is embedded in the long-term evolution of global financial power. Historically, sovereign currencies and banking systems dominated wealth storage and transfer; now, fixed-supply assets like Bitcoin provide options outside the system, forcing traditional institutions to adjust their product lines to retain pricing power and customer loyalty. Banks like Morgan Stanley launching their own ETFs and recommending a 2-4% allocation ratio indicate that the wealth management chain is incorporating crypto risk premiums into conventional portfolio frameworks, potentially amplifying the concentration of wealth from retail levels to institutional channels.
From a historical structural perspective, the mainstreaming of similar asset classes is often accompanied by a reconstruction of both supply and distribution sides. At the current stage, the entry of traditional giants has reduced user friction but also introduced centralized custody and platform risks, creating tension with the early self-custody concept. In the long run, this may deepen crypto's role in productivity enhancement and industrial migration while testing the adaptability of existing monetary systems in the face of non-inflatable assets, marking a slow transition of capital allocation mechanisms from a single sovereign framework to a multi-layered coexistence.