The portion of the U.S. population that has adopted bitcoin accordingly would be smaller – perhaps just 2%.

In the last year, I’ve been contacted by numerous financial advisors who are building their businesses around bitcoin. Their clients aren’t allocating 1% of their portfolios to bitcoin – they’re allocating 10% to 30%. For these advisors, the cornerstone of their practice isn’t stocks, bonds, or real estate; it’s bitcoin.

It’s now on its way to becoming something more like the next gold or even the next S&P 500 – and possibly the largest asset class in a client’s portfolio. Yet, the fraction of current and potential financial advisory clients who treat it this way is still small.

I expect financial advisors who are on the right side of this trend to reap rich rewards. It isn’t necessary to build a practice around bitcoin – yet – but financial advisors would be wise to find ways to ride the bitcoin adoption wave. It’s just getting started.