Ric Edelman Shocks Wall Street: ’Financial Advisors Should Allocate Up to 40% to Crypto Now’

Brace for impact: Ric Edelman just dropped a bombshell on traditional finance.

The 40% Crypto Mandate

The famed financial advisor—normally a bastion of conservative allocation strategies—is now telling peers to consider stuffing client portfolios with up to 40% digital assets. That’s not a typo. That’s tectonic.

Why Advisors Are Sweating

For an industry that still debates whether 1% Bitcoin exposure is ‘too risky,’ Edelman’s call reads like financial heresy. But with institutional adoption surging and legacy 60/40 portfolios flatlining, maybe the real risk is doing nothing.

The Fine Print

No, he’s not saying YOLO into meme coins—this is about structured exposure to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and regulated crypto products. The kind of stuff that makes compliance departments slightly less nauseous.

Closing Thought

Funny how ‘prudent diversification’ suddenly includes crypto when clients start demanding it—and when advisors realize those 2% management fees won’t pay for Hamptons homes with 20th-century returns.

Edelman: Crypto’s Rise Justifies 40% Allocation

Edelman, who leads the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, said the dramatic change stems from what he described as the industry’s transformation.

“Four years ago, we didn’t know if governments WOULD ban Bitcoin, if the technology would fail, or if institutions would adopt it,” he said.

“Today, all those questions have been resolved. It’s radically changed and is now a mainstream asset.”

Signs of crypto’s mainstream arrival are evident in the surge of inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs, which have pulled in billions this year and are among the top-performing asset classes for new investments.

The influx has put crypto firmly on the radar of advisors and institutional investors.

Edelman also highlighted a broader trend reshaping investment strategy: the erosion of the traditional 60/40 portfolio split between stocks and bonds.

Longer life expectancies, with projections suggesting people could live to 100 in coming decades, mean that retirees will need higher returns for longer periods.

“Today’s 60-year-old is kind of like yesterday’s 30-year-old,” he said. “You need to get better returns than you can get from bonds and you need to hold equities longer than ever before.”

In this environment, Edelman argued, crypto’s role becomes indispensable.

He pointed out that Bitcoin’s price movements are uncorrelated with traditional assets, making it a powerful diversification tool that can enhance portfolio risk-adjusted returns.

“The crypto asset class offers the opportunity for higher returns than you’re likely to get in virtually any other asset class,” he said.

Edelman Calls Bitcoin Price Forecasts Conservative

With some market watchers forecasting bitcoin prices could reach $150,000-$250,000 by year-end — and even $500,000 by the end of the decade — Edelman called these projections “conservative” compared to other bullish estimates.

As reported, Shunyet Jan, Head of Derivatives at Bybit, has projected that Bitcoin could reach $125,000 by the end of Q2 if current trends persist.

Likewise, crypto analyst Scott Melker has said he believes Bitcoin could surge to $250,000 by the end of 2025, driven by institutional demand and a maturing market structure.

Despite growing interest in Bitcoin, not everyone in traditional finance is convinced of its long-term staying power.

As reported, Eric Semler, chairman of Semler Scientific, has said that many hedge funds remain skeptical about Bitcoin’s long-term viability, believing it may lose momentum after the TRUMP administration.