Truist Offers Crypto Trading to Private Wealth Clients

Truist’s private wealth business is expanding into cryptocurrency investments, according to a Wednesday (Feb. 25) press release.

Truist Investment Services financial advisors will now be permitted to offer spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) sponsored by Fidelity and BlackRock and registered by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the release said.

“Clients are increasingly exploring digital assets as part of a diversified investment strategy,” Brian Dowhower, head of Truist Wealth, said in the release. “Our approach is to balance strong client interest with prudent safeguards, ensuring any expansion of digital asset offerings occurs thoughtfully and in alignment with our purpose-driven wealth experience and commitments to deliver client care and fulfill regulatory expectations.”

The ETFs provide exposure to regulated digital assets via exchange-traded structures, giving investors a straightforward path to access an evolving asset class, according to the release. TIS clients will get the chance to work with their financial advisors, although the ETFs are also available through Truist Trade for clients interested in “self-directed real-time trading.”

Truist’s ETF project is the latest example of the banking world’s ongoing embrace of digital assets.

While 2025 saw large fluctuations in the cryptocurrency market, the year’s most important story was one of “structural adoption, regulatory articulation and financial integration,” trends that “signal crypto’s steady migration from fringe innovation toward the core of financial architecture,” PYMNTS reported in December.

The relaxing of U.S. policy toward crypto played a role in the shift. The GENIUS Act, which became law over the summer, created the first comprehensive federal framework for regulating stablecoins by requiring full backing with high-quality liquid assets (in most cases, U.S. dollars or Treasuries) and rigid transparency rules, reducing ambiguity.

More recently, PYMNTS Intelligence examined the way the rise of blockchain technology in institutional finance is influencing hiring patterns.

“Wall Street’s latest recruitment push is not centered on experimental labs, but on ‘chain jugglers,’ or engineers who can connect disparate blockchain ecosystems into something resembling a coherent and interoperable financial infrastructure,” PYMNTS reported Feb. 18. “These specialists are tasked with stitching together distributed ledgers that were never designed to communicate, ensuring that assets, payments and records can move seamlessly across them.”