Ric Edelman, one of the most influential voices in personal finance, has radically revised his stance on crypto allocation. After years of cautious optimism, he now believes that digital assets deserve a far larger share in investment portfolios than ever before.
Back in 2021, Edelman suggested that investors allocate just 1% of their portfolio to cryptocurrencies. At the time, the digital asset landscape was still clouded by regulatory uncertainty and skepticism over long-term adoption. Fast forward four years, and Edelman is now recommending allocations as high as 40%.
“Today I am saying 40%, that’s astonishing,” Edelman told CNBC’s Crypto World, acknowledging the dramatic pivot in his own investment philosophy. According to him, the change reflects not just market trends but a complete transformation in how crypto is perceived within the broader financial world.
Edelman attributes his shift to the maturation of the industry. Key doubts from four years ago—such as the threat of government bans, questions about blockchain’s staying power, and lack of mainstream adoption—have largely been settled. Bitcoin is now widely accepted, and institutional involvement continues to surge.
One of the clearest indicators of this shift is the explosive growth of Bitcoin ETFs, which have brought in billions in inflows this year. For Edelman, this is proof that crypto is no longer a fringe investment—it’s now a core component of modern portfolios.
Edelman also challenges traditional portfolio structures. The long-standing 60/40 stock-to-bond model, he argues, is outdated in a world where people live longer and require higher long-term returns. With life expectancy in the U.S. potentially reaching 100 in the coming decades, retirement strategies need a rethink.
“You need to get better returns than you can get from bonds and you need to hold equities longer than ever before,” Edelman noted. In this new reality, crypto isn’t just a speculative play—it’s a necessary tool for portfolio growth and diversification.
What makes crypto particularly valuable, Edelman says, is its lack of correlation with traditional assets like stocks, bonds, or gold. This independence makes digital assets a strong candidate for enhancing overall portfolio performance based on modern portfolio theory.
“The crypto asset class offers the opportunity for higher returns than you’re likely to get in virtually any other asset class,” he explained.
While Edelman doesn’t provide specific forecasts, he refers to price targets from analysts projecting Bitcoin to reach $150,000 to $250,000 by year’s end, and as high as $500,000 by the end of the decade. Remarkably, he describes these estimates as “conservative” compared to other market expectations.
The first week of July brings several important developments in the United States that could influence both traditional markets and the cryptocurrency sector.
In the case involving Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Hyeong Kwon, the defense has asked the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York to extend the deadline for pretrial filings by two weeks, pushing it beyond the original date of July 1, 2025.
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