One of the largest financial institutions in the world, Bank of America, wants its wealth management clients to take into consideration digital assets exposure.
Starting in 2026, the investment strategies at Bank of America’s Merrill, Bank of America Private Bank as well as Merrill Edge platforms are going to support clients who want to allocate almost 4% of their portfolios when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
For investors having a strong interest in thematic innovation along with comfort with elevated volatility, a slight allocation of 1% to 4% within digital assets could be apt, said the chief investment officer with Bank of America Private Bank, Chris Hyzy.
Hyzy went on to describe the lower end of this range as perfect for investors having a conservative risk profile, with 4% being perfect for those who have high risk tolerances.
On Jan. 5, 2026, the wealth management clients of Bank of America are also going to initiate coverage of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds from Fidelity, Bitwise, and Grayscale, as well as BlackRock.
It is worth noting that historically the wealth management clients of Bank of America were only able to access the crypto-related products, and that too upon request. In the past, that left more than 15,000 wealth advisors at the firm to be not able to make crypto-related recommendations.
The transition comes as the price of Bitcoin jumped to almost $91,600 at one point on December 02, 2025. BTC was up 7.6% in the past 24 hours; however, the largest cryptocurrency by market value is off around 30% since hitting a record high of more than $126,000 in early October 2025, as per the crypto data provider CoinGecko.
Vanguard, which is one of the largest investment companies in the world, is going to soon start letting people on its platform get access to crypto-focused ETFs as well as mutual funds.
It is well to be noted that a Bitcoin-friendly CEO got appointed to the second-largest asset manager in the world in May 2025.
In 2024, Fidelity went on to suggest that people allocate anywhere between 2% and 5% to Bitcoin, with almost 7.5% being worth it for the young investors. Describing the asset as very distinct, the institution has gone on to explore allocations in hypothetical scenarios as early as 2020.