How We Think
About Bitcoin
Allocation
Most of what has been written about Bitcoin for institutional audiences either overstates the case or understates it. The work requires an honest reading of monetary history, a clear-eyed view of what Bitcoin is and is not, and the portfolio architecture discipline to make an allocation decision that survives scrutiny over time.
On Monetary History
The dollar has lost significant purchasing power since the collapse of Bretton Woods in 1971. Most family office portfolios are built almost entirely around dollar-denominated assets: real estate, private equity, public equities, and fixed income.
Bitcoin is the only asset in wide institutional use today with a fixed supply that no government or central bank can alter. Whether a family office allocates to it or not, understanding what it is and why serious institutions are moving into it is now part of doing the job well.
On Portfolio Architecture
Bitcoin allocation is not an asset class decision in isolation. It is a portfolio architecture decision. The relevant questions are how much, in what form, through which vehicles, with what governance documentation, and with what decision-making process for changing the position over time.
Those questions have answers. Working through them rigorously is the difference between a speculative position and a governed allocation.
On the Institutional Moment
Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States have accumulated over $100 billion in cumulative net inflows since launching in January 2024. Institutional allocators now account for an estimated 38 percent of total ETF holdings. Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, BNY Mellon, and Citibank all offer institutional-grade Bitcoin custody.
The infrastructure question that stopped most family offices two years ago is no longer the primary question. The conversation has shifted to how a position is structured and governed.