Looking for serious opinions on what to go about Vanguard blocking and loudly disparaging Bitcoin ETFs and the whole Bitcoin space. Bitcoiners are understandably furious but I want to move past the "rage quit" stage and move on to the serious exploration of the option available for traditional investment accounts. Moving away from Vanguard has serious real world costs and I personally cannot decide what to do. Vanguard Key Pros: Lower fees - they have drastically lower fees than almost anyone of comparable products. Where fees are lower at a competitor its usually on an inferior product (e.g. Schwab has lower retirement date funds because they force a large portion into cash at zero interest so even if the fee is lower your net returns are still worse). If you assume you have a 401k/IRA balance of $100k and you plan to max out contributions and invest for 30 years even just 30 bps higher in fees would be roughly $150k over the life of that account. Are you seriously willing to "pay" $150k on principle to punish them for dunking on Bitcoin? Better security -Vanguard is the only major investment advisor I can find that supports FIDO keys for 2FA. Even Fidelity doesn't support them and forces you to use your phone number, leaving you vulnerable to SIM swap attacks. I think people underestimate this risk. My understanding is that Fidelity or another investment advisor does not legally have to make you whole if their system is not compromised, e.g. you get SIM swapped which they have no control over. Might they help make you whole anyway? Maybe, who knows. This is an known unknown that scares the heck out of me. No salespeople harassing you - most investment advisors are constantly trying to sell you bullshit investments based on what makes them the most money. It's like have a car dealer on speed dial 24/7. I cannot overstate how frustrating this was and how wonderful it was to move to Vanguard and have this disappear. Not ESG crazy - Unlike Blackrock they are truly more passive in their investments, and are not WEF crazy wackos trying to remake the world in their image. They mostly just want to passively invest at the lowest cost to benefit their customers unlike Larry Fink and Blackrock. There are others but I think these are most important.

Vanguard Key Cons: Trashing Bitcoin/Paternalistic attitude of management - This is really disappointing as they are one of the biggest asset managers and have massive influence. However for me personally this has zero direct effect. I hold everything in self custody and don't want to buy the Bitcoin ETFs anyway. Taxes - (not financial advice) my understanding is if you have taxable accounts and want to transfer you have to sell everything to do so. So you will have to realize any capital gains and take the tax hit if you want to move any assets in taxable accounts. HUGE downside to moving.

So I see the true tradeoff as: do I want to stand on principle to leave Vanguard because of this even knowing it comes at a huge personal financial cost and potential security risk?

My current response: I am going to wait and see. I have contacted Vanguard customer support to express my displeasure and explain I am considering eventually moving some or all assets if this is not reversed. I am hoping a public pressure campaign will solve this without individuals needing to take a personal financial hit. Frankly it is hard to me to take a big financial hit on principle that could be spent on stacking for self custody sats. I never wanted the ETF and don't really even care about it either way.

What are your thoughts? Any actual Vanguard customers want to share their approach?