UBS Wealth Manager Says Large Institutional Buyers Quietly Fueling Bitcoin Boom

A private wealth manager at Swiss financial giant UBS is crediting institutions and wealthy investors for Bitcoin’s bull run.

In a new CNBC interview, Alli McCartney, a managing director at UBS Private Wealth Management, says interest in Bitcoin from wealthy and sophisticated investors is booming.

“There’s a lot of interest and there has been a lot of interest for a significant amount of time. A lot of very wealthy individuals, even those who have made their money in very traditional finance sources, take risk. And they understand the concept of taking risk…

I think the thing is that individuals that act like institutions and non-retail individuals are getting in now as an asset-allocation play and that I think why you see such a run-up, is that you’re having some really big buys.”

McCartney cites increasing corporate adoption, the store of value narrative, and price as factors fuelling interest in BTC.

“The story of the first couple of years was that here was a store of value that was apolitical and could be a diversifier. And then you fast-forward and, to my colleague’s point, you see the numbers going up which always gets people interested. You see the adoption in the form of Bloomberg Galaxy Index. Then you go to Fidelity being a custodian and now you are at PayPal letting you buy and sell with it.”

McCartney says the new fleet of institutional investors could create a solid foundation for the price of BTC moving forward.

“So adoption is going up, price is going up and the lack of available alternatives in the market in terms of being diversifiers – like bonds have largely gone out the window because of their relative risk-return. So I think all three of those and once you see the credentialing mechanisms of large pension funds and sovereign entities which have just seen major buying – which I think is what has taken this from $25,000 up to where it was this weekend – you start to really get some credentialing mechanisms.

And by the way, unlike a retail investor, the assumption there is that these aren’t speculators. These are long-term buy-and-holds that can create some sort of substantive floor for the currency.”

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