Crypto fans mount #BoycottVanguard campaign

investmentnews.com:

In 2017, legendary investor Jack Bogle famously warned people to“avoid bitcoin like the plague.” More than six years later, Vanguard Group Inc. is still stoking the crypto world’s ire by sticking to the conservative investing approach of its late founder.

Amid the euphoria unleashed by the long-awaited debut of the first fully fledged bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the US, Vanguard sparked an uproar last week with its pointed decision to refuse to offer the new ETFs on its gigantic trading platform.

<a href=«https://twitter.com/search?q=%23boycottvanguard&src=» https: target="_blank" rel=«noreferrer noopener»>#BoycottVanguard started trending on X,

accumulating thousands of posts, with users pledging to pull their money from the asset management giant.

Vanguard’s response? To double down. The firm, which controls $8.6 trillion, has not only snubbed spot bitcoin products, it’s yanked futures-backed bitcoin funds from its platform, too. That means it now offers no crypto products whatsoever, unlike its peers.

The saga speaks to Vanguard’s deeply entrenched investing philosophy, one that harkens back to Bogle himself. The Valley Forge, Pennsylvania-based firm was founded by the money management icon in 1975 on a bedrock of investing in stocks and bonds — assets that generate cash flow, dividends and interest payments — while eschewing commodities.

Vanguard has traditionally steered clear of the latter — seen lacking intrinsic value and an internal rate of return — with Bogle dismissing commodity investing as “total speculation.” Modern-day Vanguard still follows that gospel closely nearly a half-century later, with just one commodity fund out of more than 400 offered worldwide.

“It’s not surprising whatsoever that