His reasons are best known to him. For someone who has almost 26 years of experience in financial services, not seeing the importance of ETFs is what I don't understand about his logic. After he resumed as the new CEO of Vanguard on the 8th of July last year (2024), he made a statement a month later that the company doesn't have any plans for any cryptocurrency traded funds; maybe he just doesn't see reasons to. 

If other board members see reason to disagree with his logic, they can present a proposal for it to be argued and discussed. Let's see if the majority will side with him or if he can reverse his statement.

Two things are inevitable here. It's either Vanguard bends the knee or it will become obsolete. So far, Vanguard remains adamant about not offering ETFs to its clients. They're already missing a lot of money because of this, but they stick with their decision.

The latest remains the same. Bitcoin will be rejected. It's weak, based on speculation, risky, lacks intrinsic value, not established in the investment market, no economic fundamentals, and so on. Therefore, it should have “no role in long-term investment portfolios”. They're doubling down on this.

Vanguard is destined to either swallow their pride or lose relevance.

Bitcoin is a new - big thing - for institutions and investment companies - and they should hop on and learn more about Bitcoin.
I agree with you in the fact that - they would lose relevance as time goes on, or they would only be able to try to come where others are already pushing forward.

Don't you think there would be another thing as Bitcoin to spike things up in the investment-wise sense? It was AI previously and every functionality imaginable for man to add up to any product, now it's Bitcoin and how everybody changes their views and mind about it, then - it would be something different.
Of course, I hope for everybody to see through fud and invest in BTC - but it wouldn't be the end of the world for anybody. They would just lose their lead on it.

Vanguard seems to be taking risk caution as bitcoin ETF comes with its own risk and as a financial company that javelin investors fund and even retirement savings funds, is essential to trade with caution, I understand the potential and profit opportunities in bitcoin ETF position, but we should also know that different approach for different businesses, I can't say that there are going to look away from investing in bitcoin ETF but certainly the right approach and time need to be taken for a company as big as vanguard.

Yes, I remember this declaration but to me it makes little sense at this point, I feel like this is more like an excuse. At the end of the day I don't care whether Vanguard approves or not a bitcoin ETF, it bothers me more the fact that bitcoin is still called "speculation", like if behind all the other financial assets there was no speculation but just good intentions 

Yeah but here’s the thing, no one is being forced to buy it. Also, it’s not like any retirement plans will be adding Bitcoin or Ether ETFs, so it’s a niche investment, let people do what they want.

What’s amazig to me is that they offering their funds in products like Bonus Annuities (which are 100% a scam), as well as in Dark Pools etc. Yet they won’t add btc.

so even if they know oil/bitcoin are real assets, they prefer to double bak their investments
i can easily see warren buffet/vanguard eventually offering an index of crypto institutions, rather than an etf peg of crypto itself
[/quote]

Warren is a dinosaur who knows NOTHING about tech and especially bitcoin (which he’s admitted before). I would not compare the two at all.

I am not interested in the ETF versions of bitcoin, so this is clearly not my concern even though I understand perfectly well that such development may or might trigger a more price increase for bitcoin and maybe the entire crypto market as a whole, and also help to solidify bitcoin as a world class asset available to receive investment even from world elites.

I personally have learnt to only believe in something as they come or happen, most especially in crypto, because expecting things to happens can most of the time influence our investment decisions, where if indeed, we end up making decisions based on our expectations, and our expectations did not or never came to pass, we will be disappointed and may possibly lose money as well.

So, until we see vanguard coming out publicly to discus the possible listing of a bitcoin spot ETF, I am never betting a dime on it.

Vanguard released a statement early last year on this: https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/corporatesite/us/en/corp/articles/no-bitcoin-etfs-at-vanguard-heres-why.html

I think they have covered it pretty thoroughly and also explained why it doesn't fit with their business strategies. There is no need to blast them for it, and I'm sure they've done their evaluation better than any of us could and reached that conclusion. Some companies are more adamant on investing in assets with a different objective and that's fine. Their stance might change in the future, but they're entitled to stick to their own for now.

Well, hindsight is 20/20. We can say that all of the other funds are doing the right thing by adopting Bitcoin ETFs because Bitcoin has become more valuable relative to when they were first launched.

Bitcoin isn't the first asset or commodity that they have foregone. It definitely won't be the last. For speculative assets, its pretty obvious why funds are not as enticed to invest as say something that generates constant and relatively safer returns. It probably doesn't matter much to them, nor to us.