Geneos Wealth Management, a hybrid broker/dealer and registered investment advisor with $10 billion in assets, has added Eaglebrook, which provides crypto-focused separately managed accounts, to its platform. The move will allow Geneos’ 250 advisors to access Eaglebrook’s Bitcoin and Ethereum SMAs, as well as the ability to build custom SMAs managed by the RIA.
The news comes just two months after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved Bitcoin ETFs for the first time. Geneos has approved three Bitcoin ETFs for use on its platform, including the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust and ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, which invests in Bitcoin futures. To invest in the ETFs, Geneos advisors are required to take a continuing education course on the new products and they must sign documentation indicating they read the prospectuses.
Dean Rager, chief operating officer at Geneos, says the Eaglebrook partnership provides another option and benefits a client would not get in an ETF, such as direct ownership of digital assets and automated tax loss harvesting.
“Finally, the SEC has approved ETFs for the masses,” said Dean Rager, chief operating officer at Geneos. “But there are still clients that may want to own the real deal. And this will allow us to have a little ability to solve some of those issues as opposed to just sending them off into the unknown.
“Clients can have some handholding when they go into this new asset class, as opposed to just wading in on their own," Rager said.
Rager has been testing the Eaglebrook platform with his own account for about three years.
“I found it a very easy-to-use platform," he said. "It’s a whole lot more secure than going out and trying to do your own tokens and wallets.”
He likes the fact that the assets are held at Gemini, Eaglebrook’s custodian, and that customers receive monthly statements, just like with any other brokerage account.
“As opposed to clients just going out and trying to do their own Coinbase account or some other thing, we have the ability to help them out in a much more advisory-friendly type platform,” Rager said.
But Rager said it’s still a fledgling asset class, and Geneos currently has fewer than 15 advisors investing in cryptocurrency on behalf of clients. Client interest is coming from high-net-worth individuals with $20 million or more in investible assets, who may put $10,000 or $100,000 into crypto assets.
“It’s immaterial to their overall net worth, but they’re still wanting to check it out, so to speak,” he said.
Eaglebrook, which counts Dynasty Financial Partners, Mariner Wealth Advisors and Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors among its clients, works with more than 700 advisors and has more than $210 million in assets under management, according to the firm.