Hargreaves Lansdown, a major British financial services firm, has begun offering bitcoin and other cryptocurrency exchange-traded notes to retail investors, marking a reversal of its previous position on digital assets.
The Bristol-based firm, which manages nearly £173 billion in assets, now provides ETNs—investment funds that trade on stock exchanges and track the prices of digital assets—to its customers. This shift comes less than a year after the company warned investors that bitcoin was highly volatile and not suitable for portfolio construction.
In its earlier statement, Hargreaves Lansdown had cautioned that bitcoin has experienced several periods of extreme losses and is a highly volatile investment — much riskier than stocks or bonds. The firm had stated that Bitcoin is not an asset class and questioned whether cryptocurrency possessed the characteristics necessary for inclusion in investment portfolios.
The company now notes that crypto ETNs available through its platform are considered high-risk and may be volatile, maintaining a cautionary stance even as it offers the products.
The move reflects broader regulatory shifts in the cryptocurrency market. In 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved bitcoin exchange-traded funds for investors after rejecting similar products for a decade. These funds achieved the most successful debut in ETF history, with investors moving quickly to gain exposure to the asset class. Bitcoin ETFs managed by major financial institutions including BlackRock, Fidelity, and Morgan Stanley now collectively hold over $100 billion in assets.
