WisdomTree CEO says crypto is now a core business, nearing profitability

New York — WisdomTree’s crypto business is no longer an experiment but core to the firm’s strategy and on the verge of turning profitable, CEO Jonathan Steinberg said in a fireside chat at the Ondo Summit in New York on Tuesday.

“We want to continue to scale,” Steinberg said. “Last year, we went from like $30 million in assets to about $750 million in assets,” adding that he firm doesn’t currently make money on its digital asset efforts but is “in line of sight of taking this to a profitable business.”

The firm, $150 billion in assets under management, has been investing heavily in blockchain infrastructure, launching tokenized funds, and expanding to new chains like Solana SOL$97.75. Steinberg said the effort is driven by long-term conviction. “It’s still early days, but it’s not an experiment now. We have conviction. So we believe eventually everything will go on chain.”

It’s not hard to see why WisdomTree has been pushing further with digital assets. Most recently, during its earnings presentation, it said its total WisdomTree tokenized AUM grew to $770 million, up 25x from 2024.

WisdomTree has taken an aggressive, early lead among traditional asset managers in digital assets, launching a suite of tokenized funds and recently expanding distribution via WisdomTree Connect, which enables those assets to move across self-custodied wallets and institutional platforms.

The firm also made a strategic bet on blockchain infrastructure by acquiring Securrency, a compliance-focused tokenization company, which it later sold to the DTCC. Steinberg said that move was a foundational step in enabling “compliance-aware tokens” and programmable finance, helping WisdomTree build a long-term, interoperable digital asset strategy.

For Steinberg, crypto represents more than a product opportunity — it’s a new financial infrastructure. “Really, this is bigger than asset management. This is really about financial services,” he said. “Financial services — some of these banks go back a couple of centuries. So they built on legacy, on top of legacy, on top of legacy. There is that modernization that has to happen.”

As for WisdomTree’s ambitions? “We just want to continue to scale what we’re doing,” Steinberg said.