Aaron Brown, Columnist

Are Cryptocurrencies an Asset Class? Yes and No

The answer has nothing to do with correlations, trading volume, market cap, projected returns, governance or regulation.

November 7, 2017 at 10:00 AM UTC

By Aaron Brown

Aaron Brown is a former head of financial market research at AQR Capital Management. He is also an active crypto investor, and has venture capital investments and advisory ties with crypto firms. He is the author of the soon-to-be-released "Wrong Number."

What's in your wallet?
Photographer: Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images

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Are cryptocurrencies an asset class? That depends on you. When you choose an investment portfolio, do you want to start with a category for these new currencies along with stocks, bonds and money market instruments?

This is not related to the question of whether or how much you should invest. You can call cryptocurrencies an asset class and assign zero or even negative portfolio weight to them. Or you can decide they're not an asset class and still try to get positive or negative exposure to them via other asset classes.