Wall Street’s Biggest Names Now Formally Recommend Bitcoin Allocations to Clients

Major financial institutions issued formal guidance recommending portfolio allocations to Bitcoin, with the suggested ranges varying considerably by institution but converging around the 1% to 5% band.

The Ranges and What They Reveal

The chart maps each institution’s recommended allocation range along a spectrum from 0% to 5%, with River noted separately at the far right end of the scale.

Fidelity carries the widest and most aggressive range of the group, with its recommendation spanning from roughly 1% up to approximately 5%.

That breadth reflects Fidelity’s longstanding positioning as one of the most crypto-forward major financial institutions, having launched its own Bitcoin custody and ETF products earlier than most competitors.

Bank of America’s range sits between approximately 1% and 4%, a meaningful endorsement from an institution that spent several years in the skeptical camp on digital assets. Morgan Stanley’s guidance covers a similar spread, running from below 1% to just under 4%.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, clusters more tightly, with its recommendation sitting around the 2% mark with a narrower indicated range. That specificity is notable. A precise midpoint recommendation from BlackRock carries different weight than a wide exploratory range, given how much institutional capital takes its cues from the firm’s formal research positions.

WisdomTree and J.P. Morgan both sit at the more conservative end of the chart. J.P. Morgan’s range appears centered near 1% with limited spread in either direction, consistent with the firm’s historically cautious public posture on Bitcoin even as it has expanded its blockchain infrastructure internally.

Why the Consensus Has Shifted

The emergence of formal allocation guidance from this group of institutions represents a structural change in how Bitcoin is being treated within mainstream portfolio construction. For most of the asset’s existence, financial advisors at major banks operated under informal or explicit restrictions on recommending crypto exposure. The availability of regulated spot Bitcoin ETFs, launched in the U.S. in early 2024, removed a key compliance barrier that had previously made formal recommendations difficult to issue.

What the River chart captures is the result of that shift playing out across a two-year period. Six major institutions, each with distinct client bases and risk frameworks, have now landed in a position where a small but nonzero Bitcoin allocation is considered within the range of reasonable financial guidance. The fact that none of the ranges start above 0% and none of the ranges except River’s extend beyond 5% suggests a shared understanding of Bitcoin as a portfolio diversifier rather than a core holding.

The Practical Implication

If the institutions represented in this chart collectively manage even a fraction of their client assets toward the midpoint of their stated allocation ranges, the capital flows implied are substantial. Fidelity alone manages trillions in assets under administration. Applied at 2% or 3%, the Bitcoin demand that formal allocation guidance generates at scale becomes a structural bid that operates independent of retail sentiment.

That dynamic is part of what makes this chart worth tracking. The numbers themselves are modest. The institutional infrastructure behind them is not.

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