Morning Minute: Vanguard Finally Lets Investors Buy Crypto

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors rebound after selloff; BTC at $87,400
• Saylor’s Strategy announced a $1.44B USD Reserve to cover debt payments
• Vanguard finally opens doors to crypto ETFs starting today
• House Republicans release 50-page report on Operation Chokepoint 2.0
• Myriad partners with Trust Wallet to bring prediction markets native in-wallet

🏛️ Vanguard Finally Lets Investors Buy Crypto

One of the final anti-crypto financial giants just capitulated.

Vanguard is opening its doors to crypto.

📌 What Happened

Vanguard, the $9T asset manager that spent a decade telling everyone crypto was too speculative, just flipped.

Starting today, customers can buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP ETFs directly through their Vanguard brokerage accounts.

It’s one of the biggest psychological unlocks in the history of crypto adoption.

Vanguard quietly rolled out support for spot and futures crypto ETFs, including funds tied to BTC, ETH, XRP and even Solana.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean Vanguard is launching its own ETF. It’s simply allowing third-party issuers onto its platform.

But that alone is a big shift.

🗣️What Are They Saying

“Starting tmrw vanguard will allow ETFs and MFs tracking bitcoin and select other cryptos to begin trading on their platform. They cite how the ETfs have been tested performed as designed through multiple periods of volatility.” – Bloomberg ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas, on X

“Vanguard 2024: “#Bitcoin isn’t a store of value. We’ll never offer ETFs.”
Vanguard 2025: “Bitcoin trading starts tomorrow.” – TFTC on X

“Vanguard wants its clients to enter at the bottom of the bitcoin cycle. As always timing matters.” James Van Stratten, on X

🧠 Why It Matters

For years, Vanguard took a hard-line stance against crypto and its ETFs.

Now it’s giving tens of millions of retail and retirement investors access to regulated crypto products right next to their index funds.

This unlocks an entirely new class of investor—the retirement saver, the index-fund loyalist, the “I don’t trade but I want exposure” crowd.

These investors don’t move the market intraday, but over months and years, they reshape flows.

This is the infinite twap. It’s finally here.

Vanguard also represents something bigger: the capitulation of traditional finance to the idea that crypto belongs in a standard investment menu.

It signals to regulators that digital assets are now part of normal portfolio construction.

And it creates pressure on remaining holdouts.

Most importantly, it shows that crypto is graduating from an alternative asset into a mainstream option.

And once that switch flips, it rarely flips back.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are green and reversing yesterday’s selloff; BTC 2% at $87,400; ETH even at $2,820, BNB +2% at $842, SOL +2% at $129
• Fartcoin (+14%), SPX (+12%) and PUMP (+9%) led top movers
• Vanguard announced it will start allowing trading of crypto ETFs and mutual funds on its brokerage platform, ending its long-standing opposition
• Coinbase leadership and Marc Andreessen were sued over an alleged years-long insider-trading scheme
• Ripple secured a payments license in Singapore and expanded XRP and RLUSD payment services there
• Vitalik Buterin warned that shifting Zcash governance toward token-based voting could erode privacy protections
• Federal Reserve Vice Chair Michelle Bowman announced that bank regulators are working on stablecoin rules
• Anthropic released a report showing how AI agents found zero-day exploits in crypto protocols in test environments, pose threats to smart contracts
• House Republicans released a 50-page report about Operation Chokepoint 2.0 alleging Fed, FDIC, OCC and the SEC covertly pressured banks to avoid crypto, using pause letters, informal guidance, and SAB 121, ultimately debanking over 30 firms

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

• Saylor’s Strategy announced a new $1.44B USD Reserve, funded via ATM equity sales, meant to cover its upcoming debt payments (21 months worth)
• Tom Lee’s BMNR bought another $265M in ETH last week, bringing its ETH holdings to 3.73M ($10.1B); they also hold $882M in cash and other crypto holdings
• Trump Media and Crypto.com moved closer to launching a publicly traded $6B Cronos (CRO) DAT
• Grayscale is set to launch a Chainlink ETF (GLNK) today

In Memes / Onchain Movers

• Memecoin leaders are slightly green with SPX & Fartcoin leading; DOGE +1%, Shiba +1%, PEPE -1%, PENGU +2%, BONK +2%, TRUMP +1%, SPX +12%, and FARTCOIN +1%
• Kabuto jumped 250% to $10M overnight; pippin (+40%), CARDS (+38%) and ORE (+17%) led onchain movers

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

• Kalshi launched tokenized prediction markets on Solana powered by DFlow, tradeable on Jupiter
• Separately, Kalshi sought court protection from Nevada regulators after losing its state-level case
• Infinex’s Crate Run program went live, offering rewards for users based on perp volume as well as some historical metrics & socials
• Myriad landed a partnership with Trust Wallet to bring prediction markets in-wallet for all Trust users (Disclaimer: Myriad is owned by Decrypt‘s parent company Dastan)

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders were mostly flat after a red Monday; Punks even at 30.9 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 5.36, BAYC -2% at 5.67 ETH; Hypurr’s -6% at 580 HYPE
• Infinex Patrons (+7%) and Veefriends (+6%) led notable movers
• Chimpers announced a partnership with ApeChain to build physical and digital experiences