Clients who hold bitcoin, Ethereum, or other crypto assets onchain are starting to ask their advisors a structural question: is direct ownership still the right way to hold a position of this size? The answer depends on whether the client can move to an exchange-traded product (ETP), a regulated security that holds the underlying asset, without selling first.

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Why direct ownership becomes an operational question at scale

Private key management is an operational risk that grows with the size of the position. A client who holds crypto onchain also sits outside the institutional infrastructure that most professionally managed portfolios rely on. For an advisor, that means a large holding that cannot be reported, pledged, or reviewed…