Vanguard blocks spot Bitcoin ETF purchases

Asset manager Vanguard will not allow the purchase of spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs on its platform.

A Jan. 11 Wall Street Journal report claims Vanguard has no plans to offer new instruments on its brokerage platform because they do not match its traditional offerings.

“Our perspective is that these products do not align with our offer focused on asset classes such as equities, bonds, and cash, which Vanguard views as the building blocks of a well-balanced, long-term investment portfolio.”

Vanguard statement

Tony Spencer, one of Vanguard’s clients, noted that a representative told him that Vanguard does not allow the purchase of spot Bitcoin ETFs because the product is “inconsistent with Vanguard’s investment philosophy.”

Spencer also claims that Vanguard only allows investors to sell Grayscale’s flagship Bitcoin product, GBTC, which recently converted into a spot ETF. Clients of investment firms Citi, Merill Lynch, Edward Jones, and UBS reported that they could also not purchase spot Bitcoin ETFs on those respective platforms.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially approved the launch of the first 11 ETFs that invest directly in Bitcoin. This happened after an unidentified person gained unauthorized access to the SEC’s account on the social network X and published information about the regulator’s permission to launch such ETFs, which was later denied by the commission and deleted.