Orion Mulls More Acquisitions as It Folds In Brinker, HiddenLevers

Edelman's council is an "important first step for advisors," according to Clarke, saying, "If nothing else, just get educated on it and get that certification so that when the client does come in, you're speaking from a point of view of expertise."

For now, the "biggest challenge that we face, I think, as an industry is trying to figure out how do we deal with digital currencies," he said. "Do we take the time to set up these off-platform assets/off-brokerage platform accounts with these digital currency companies? Or do we wait for the SEC to approve an ETF of sorts or an ETF that's based on some type of a futures version of a digital currency?"

This is an example where "technology is way ahead of the regulatory environment," he noted. "The regulators, just by saying no to an ETF, have certainly not dissuaded people from investing in digital currencies. In fact, they're doing it outside of the SEC's purview."

One only has to "look at the amount of assets involved that are being invested in digital currencies," he said, noting advisors are trying to figure out how they can incorporate them as part of client portfolios "as opposed to seeing those assets leave and go outside of" their firms.

The increased number of large firms supporting crypto, meanwhile, is convincing more advisors to get into crypto, while Elon Musk is creating more demand for digital assets also, Clarke said.

Ascent Conference

About 1,000 people attended the conference, about the same number as the last in-person Ascent two years ago, Clarke said. "We had a couple of hundred advisors that were on a waiting list that wanted to attend that we just simply didn't have the room to accommodate."

There were also "well over 100 virtual attendees" this year, he said. But "I think people are kind of virtual event burnt out," he said, noting it is "tough to maintain the attention levels at the virtual events."

Asked if he had any thoughts about postponing or canceling the in-person conference like other organizations have done in recent weeks, he said: "We continuously evaluated the situation. We did contract with a third party to help us maintain safety protocols." There was medical staff and rapid testing for COVID-19 onsite, he noted.

Attendees were also asked to upload their vaccination statuses to the third party, he said, noting over 85% of attendees were vaccinated. Therefore, "we felt very good about continuing to move forward with bringing everybody together in person," he said.

Attendees were also required to sign off on a health certification form to verify that they didn't have any COVID symptoms. Masks and hand sanitizer were also given out to everybody who checked in at the conference. But attendees were not required to wear masks.

Each attendee also received a different color wristband based on their preferences for greeting others at the event (such as open to shaking hands, just open to fist bumping or preferring to remain socially distant). There was also the virtual option.

"We felt really good about making sure that we were providing a range of options so people didn't feel like they had to come if they weren't comfortable with that," Clarke explained.