Wealthfront warms to crypto alongside a move to let users customize portfolios

Wealthfront, one of the largest independent robo-advisers, announced that it’s going to let its users invest in cryptocurrencies, alongside a broader move to allow customers to further customize their portfolios.

Why should we care?
Wealthfront’s embrace of crypto follows a broader trend of established financial companies letting users hold and sell cryptocurrencies amid a wave of recent adoption. The upcoming rollout of cryptocurrency is a significant about-turn for Wealthfront. “We believe that crypto is a speculation not an investment, and we only apply best investment practices that are academically proven,” President and CEO Andy Rachelff said in 2019. But times they are a-changin’. The company has been cautiously angling toward the crypto space since 2018, when it allowed its clients to link their Coinbase accounts. Wealthfront said it decided to launch crypto because of customers’ growing interest in crypto and crypto exposure in clients’ outside brokerage accounts. Now, Wealthfront is positioning crypto investing within the Wealthfront umbrella – with exposure “limited likely no more than 20%” – as a responsible way to do it. “People can go to Coinbase or go to Robinhood if they want to gamble, but we think Wealthfront can become the place to invest responsibly in crypto as part of a diversified portfolio,” Chief Strategy Officer Dan Carroll said in a recent interview. The company did not say which cryptocurrencies it intends to offer.