Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream, says the next major phase of Bitcoin adoption will be driven by model portfolios, managed funds and pension funds — a “third wave” that he argues is still largely to come. In an interview published by Bitcoin Magazine on November 2, 2026, Back also describes how Swiss banks are preparing for that institutional shift.

According to Back, the first wave of Bitcoin adoption was individuals, while the second wave came through ETFs. Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds were approved in the United States in January 2024, giving traditional brokerage customers direct, exchange-listed exposure to Bitcoin for the first time. The third wave, in Back's framing, would embed Bitcoin in longer-horizon institutional allocations through model portfolios, managed funds and pension funds. Model portfolios are preset allocation templates that advisors and managed-account platforms apply across client portfolios, and pension funds invest retirement assets on horizons that can span decades — a layer that, in Back's telling, has yet to materially engage with Bitcoin. Whether pension allocations follow the path he describes is the thread to watch as the thesis plays out.

The three-waves thesis anchors a wide-ranging conversation covering Blockstream's Swiss expansion, institutional custody, tokenization and the regulatory cost of holding Bitcoin.

Back, a cryptographer best known for inventing Hashcash — the proof-of-work system cited in the original Bitcoin whitepaper — co-founded Blockstream in 2014. The company builds Bitcoin infrastructure, including the Liquid Network, a federated Bitcoin sidechain launched in 2018 that supports faster settlement and the issuance of tokenized assets.

The interview draws on Blockstream's expanded Swiss presence. The company opened an office in Lugano, the largest city in Switzerland's Italian-speaking canton of Ticino — a jurisdiction that has promoted Bitcoin adoption through the Plan ₿ initiative launched with stablecoin issuer Tether in 2022 — and has also begun offering consulting services. Other topics include Swiss banks seeking quantum-safe Bitcoin custody — a reference to cryptographic designs intended to withstand attacks by future quantum computers — tokenized money market funds, whose shares are represented as blockchain tokens, versus stablecoins, and tokenized shares issued on Liquid through Blockstream AMP, the company's asset issuance platform. Back also addresses where institutions still get stuck, whether firms should build custody in-house or use a third-party custodian, and how regulation shapes Bitcoin custody.

On the regulatory side, the conversation takes up the Basel rules and their cost implications for holding Bitcoin. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's cryptoasset standards assign a 1,250% risk weight to banks' unhedged exposures to cryptoassets such as Bitcoin, with implementation scheduled to begin on January 1, 2026 — a treatment that makes holding Bitcoin on bank balance sheets highly capital-intensive. Combined with the framework's 8% minimum capital requirement, the 1,250% weighting translates into capital at least equal to the full value of any unhedged Bitcoin a bank holds.

The full interview is available on Bitcoin Magazine's YouTube channel: Adam Back: Pension Funds Are Bitcoin's “Third Wave” of Adoption.

Chapters:

• 00:00 — Why Blockstream Opened an Office in Lugano
• 01:20 — Why Blockstream Started Offering Consulting
• 02:01 — Swiss Banks Want Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Custody
• 03:04 — Tokenized Money Market Funds vs. Stablecoins
• 04:13 — Tokenized Shares on Liquid and Blockstream AMP
• 05:55 — Where Institutions Still Get Stuck
• 07:00 — Build In-House or Use a Custodian?
• 08:01 — How Regulation Shapes Bitcoin Custody
• 10:01 — Basel Rules and the Cost of Holding Bitcoin
• 10:40 — The Three Waves of Bitcoin Adoption

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This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mark Mason.