Vanguard CEO: ‘You Will Never See a Fund from Vanguard on Bitcoin’

Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley says that the investment advising firm will never create a Bitcoin fund.

In a conversation with CNBC’s Bob Pisani on Monday, Buckley claimed that the investment firm will stay away from the dominant digital currency asset.

“You will never see a fund from Vanguard on Bitcoin,” Buckley said. “We tend to stay away from assets that don’t have underlying economic value. They don’t generate earnings or cash flows.”

“The bitcoin – its value is based off of scarcity – and an artificial scarcity that’s out there,” he continued. “It’s really tough to imagine where the long-term return comes from other than speculation.”

Vanguard, which oversees $4.5 trillion in assets under management, offers a popular array of ETFs or exchange-traded funds. An ETF trades like a regular stock but is actually a fund made up of a collection of investments, which is managed by advisors. Some investment firms have flirted with the possibility of starting a Bitcoin-focused ETF.

One such fund, Ark Innovation ETF, holds Bitcoin amongst its portfolio of tech companies.

“We hold bitcoin in the portfolio not because we think we’re more nimble than other people, but because we think we have a better long-term understanding,” Ark’s Director of Research Brett Winton said in December.”We see a young asset class like crypto assets as having lots of volatility and lots of potential upside.”