Latest / The Paul Barron Crypto Show / 21Shares Ethereum ETF Launch️🔥What's Next? CEO INTERVIEW w/Hany Rashwan
Transcript
- 0:07Speaker 1: All right, let's get into ETHTFS today, and we wanted
- 0:10Speaker 1: to dive in a little bit deeper, so we thought, hey,
- 0:12Speaker 1: let's get one of the asset managers on the show
- 0:14Speaker 1: to talk a little bit more into where Ethereum is
- 0:17Speaker 1: going as an ETF, what it might look in terms
- 0:20Speaker 1: of markets, and also how this may play out in
- 0:22Speaker 1: other asset in the game. I think this is gonna
- 0:25Speaker 1: be a good one. My name is Paul Barren, Welcome
- 0:27Speaker 1: back into tech Path. Joining me today is Haney Raschwan,
- 0:30Speaker 1: who is the co founder and CEO over at twenty
- 0:32Speaker 1: one Shares. Great to have you on the show.
- 0:33Speaker 2: Haney, thanks for having me, Paul.
- 0:36Speaker 1: Okay, so let's just go right into it. First of all,
- 0:38Speaker 1: what a day. Yesterday was one billion into ethtf's going
- 0:44Speaker 1: like crazy. We've started to see a lot of the
- 0:46Speaker 1: inflows rolling in. And I think when you look at
- 0:49Speaker 1: the market as is right now, and you also look
- 0:52Speaker 1: at the anticipation, because everybody's like, well, all right, that
- 0:54Speaker 1: was day one, what could it be for the rest?
- 0:57Speaker 1: I was just looking at a headline right here, city
- 0:59Speaker 1: predict five point four billion in inflows in the six months.
- 1:03Speaker 1: I feel like this might be a little bit low,
- 1:05Speaker 1: But I'm just gonna I wanted to get your opinion
- 1:07Speaker 1: after a billion dollar day, how does this even correlate?
- 1:10Speaker 3: The question is, how did you feel about this headline
- 1:13Speaker 3: two days ago?
- 1:14Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, right, that's a good question. Yeah, I think.
- 1:20Speaker 3: Bitcoin the ETF launches that we did earlier this year
- 1:24Speaker 3: in January were historic, some of the largest ETF launches
- 1:28Speaker 3: in ETF history based on the inflows, and I feel
- 1:32Speaker 3: like there was all a confluence of some a ton
- 1:37Speaker 3: of very positive events that came about to make that happen.
- 1:41Speaker 3: It was done at the right time, the right place,
- 1:45Speaker 3: It was the right product.
- 1:46Speaker 2: People were clamoring for it.
- 1:48Speaker 3: And we genuinely did not think that Ethereum had a
- 1:53Speaker 3: lot of the same variables.
- 1:56Speaker 2: It's the summer.
- 1:57Speaker 3: There's a lot more risk both economically and politically than
- 2:02Speaker 3: there was back in January. Things should be muted and
- 2:06Speaker 3: stunted quite a bit. And so we've personally felt a
- 2:11Speaker 3: little bit blown away with the amount of interest volume,
- 2:16Speaker 3: positive sentiment in what is the end of July, which
- 2:21Speaker 3: traditionally in the financial world is not a crazy popular
- 2:24Speaker 3: time to launch financial products, And so I do think
- 2:29Speaker 3: it speaks to how much people are looking for.
- 2:36Speaker 2: Investment opportunities.
- 2:37Speaker 3: How much people care about crypto, and I think that
- 2:41Speaker 3: based on yesterday, probably a little bit on the conservative side,
- 2:48Speaker 3: but I would have maybe said I can see it
- 2:52Speaker 3: happening at this level just seventy two hours ago.
- 2:55Speaker 1: Interesting, Okay, well good. We of course are a channel
- 2:59Speaker 1: that looks the technology. We break down a lot of worth.
- 3:02Speaker 1: These investments are going from a standpoint of just hey,
- 3:05Speaker 1: what is the market capacity? What could potentially be there?
- 3:08Speaker 1: You know when you look at a total addressable market
- 3:10Speaker 1: in the idea of where tech is going. So it
- 3:14Speaker 1: wasn't a surprise to me. I felt like, actually it
- 3:16Speaker 1: could have been maybe a little stronger even though, but
- 3:18Speaker 1: I would agree with you. I think the seasonality of
- 3:20Speaker 1: it probably has some bearing overall. Here's James Safer coming
- 3:23Speaker 1: in from Bloomberg first full day eth mistakes are in
- 3:29Speaker 1: and they took one hundred and seven million in. There's
- 3:32Speaker 1: black Rock coming in. Of course, bit wise kind of
- 3:36Speaker 1: led the way here, and you look at the overall
- 3:41Speaker 1: roster here, including twenty one shares there, and the potential
- 3:45Speaker 1: here for being able to really get this out there
- 3:48Speaker 1: in front of asset managers and just in general, I
- 3:50Speaker 1: think investors for you guys, what is your next step?
- 3:55Speaker 1: What are some of the strategies that you guys are
- 3:57Speaker 1: looking to do and get into motion to kind of
- 4:00Speaker 1: old on this.
- 4:02Speaker 3: Yeah, So to take a step back, twenty one Shares
- 4:05Speaker 3: is the world's largest issuer of crypto ETFs. We're also
- 4:09Speaker 3: the first issuer we first listed the global first physically
- 4:16Speaker 3: back crypto exchange strated product out of Switzerland, out of Zurich,
- 4:19Speaker 3: back in twenty eighteen, and we now have about fifty
- 4:23Speaker 3: of these things around the globe in Australia and the
- 4:26Speaker 3: Middle East and Europe where we're number one, and in
- 4:28Speaker 3: the US where based on bitcoin and ethereum we're in
- 4:31Speaker 3: third place on an aggregate basis right now. And if
- 4:36Speaker 3: you look at our products, fifty ETPs covering all these
- 4:40Speaker 3: single assets, stakable assets, thematics indices. We even have a
- 4:45Speaker 3: couple of shorts. You can short bitcoin or ethereum using
- 4:48Speaker 3: a couple of our ETFs as well. We have some
- 4:51Speaker 3: hybrid products with gold and crypto. And I would say
- 4:54Speaker 3: that if it's not super obvious with you know, with
- 4:58Speaker 3: my accent, we are Americans that were pushed to launch
- 5:03Speaker 3: this outside of America at the beginning, because America wasn't
- 5:06Speaker 3: ready for this on a regulatory level, and so our
- 5:10Speaker 3: ambition is to mirror exactly what we have done outside
- 5:16Speaker 3: of the United States. So our ambition is to build
- 5:21Speaker 3: bridges into the crypto world that involves dozens and dozens
- 5:24Speaker 3: of investible crypto assets.
- 5:27Speaker 2: We've already.
- 5:29Speaker 3: Started looking at additional assets beyond just ethereum, and it
- 5:33Speaker 3: is our hope that a we upgrade these products. Ethereum
- 5:38Speaker 3: launched without staking, which we've seen in a few markets
- 5:41Speaker 3: before where regulators sometimes get comfortable launching it first without
- 5:45Speaker 3: staking and then allowing us to upgrade it later, as
- 5:49Speaker 3: well as launching additional assets and additional strategies. And so
- 5:53Speaker 3: I would say it's just the beginning, and it does
- 5:56Speaker 3: make sense. We've opened several markets globally with bitcoin followed
- 5:59Speaker 3: by Ethereum, usually followed by a gush of new listings
- 6:04Speaker 3: and new crypto assets.
- 6:06Speaker 1: So right now net asset value on CETH I can
- 6:11Speaker 1: kind of see it going there. But back to your
- 6:13Speaker 1: point is that obviously these are very early days with
- 6:17Speaker 1: the ETF just launching, but interesting points that you made
- 6:21Speaker 1: in terms of the alternative of the products themselves. So
- 6:24Speaker 1: the appetite is clearly there from the investor community, and
- 6:28Speaker 1: the likelihood is we're going to see a lot more creativeness,
- 6:32Speaker 1: I should say, with a lot of the ASCID managers
- 6:34Speaker 1: going into much like what you're talking about with the
- 6:38Speaker 1: US getting into a position to where maybe there's some
- 6:41Speaker 1: regulatory alignment that could open this up. How much of
- 6:45Speaker 1: an impact would that have on you guys really putting
- 6:47Speaker 1: the hammer down in terms of new assets coming onto
- 6:50Speaker 1: twenty one shares.
- 6:54Speaker 2: We're going to constantly be pushing.
- 6:56Speaker 3: We're going to be pushing until we get to the
- 6:59Speaker 3: same heridy with our other crypto assets that we've seen
- 7:04Speaker 3: around the globe, whether with Solana, Ripple, Polygon.
- 7:10Speaker 2: Et cetera.
- 7:11Speaker 3: We think there's a lot of very very interesting assets.
- 7:14Speaker 2: Out there that are investable. I think that.
- 7:19Speaker 3: It takes time and people need to realize that it
- 7:22Speaker 3: took us a couple of years to move beyond just
- 7:25Speaker 3: bitcoin and ethereum the first time we did this, and
- 7:30Speaker 3: we have the patience and the experience of going through
- 7:35Speaker 3: the same experience. And so America is a new market
- 7:39Speaker 3: for us. We are primarily known outside of America given
- 7:43Speaker 3: the kind of company that we have built, but America
- 7:46Speaker 3: is absolutely something that has been part of the plan
- 7:49Speaker 3: since we started this company six or seven years ago,
- 7:51Speaker 3: and we're going to invest a ton in it. We
- 7:54Speaker 3: have an office open in New York, It has maybe
- 7:58Speaker 3: forty to fifty people in it, and we're going to
- 8:00Speaker 3: continue investing across both our American staff and our American products.
- 8:05Speaker 3: I would say Ethereum is just the beginning, okay.
- 8:08Speaker 1: All right, good to know when you look at the fees,
- 8:11Speaker 1: because this seems to be a very competitive marketplace right now,
- 8:15Speaker 1: and you look at investors coming into Ethereum maybe for
- 8:18Speaker 1: the first time, where they could go on to either
- 8:21Speaker 1: centralized exchanges or decentralized exchanges and make a trade over
- 8:25Speaker 1: there for the core asset versus going into an ETF
- 8:30Speaker 1: and having these lower fees.
- 8:31Speaker 2: Which is better?
- 8:32Speaker 1: Right now?
- 8:33Speaker 2: Do you guys?
- 8:33Speaker 1: Have you guys done the math on this for investors?
- 8:36Speaker 1: So I'm sure to get in that question all the time.
- 8:39Speaker 3: So I think that it's a very very very good question,
- 8:44Speaker 3: and we get it a lot. You're right, we have
- 8:47Speaker 3: to we have to think about who the investor set is.
- 8:51Speaker 3: And let me preface this with saying twenty one shares
- 8:55Speaker 3: me personally, we have no issues whatsoever with people holding
- 8:59Speaker 3: crypto physically, and it makes sense for a lot of
- 9:02Speaker 3: people to do so. And in order for the Ethereum
- 9:05Speaker 3: network to grow in value and importance, people actually need
- 9:09Speaker 3: to use the Ethereum network on a native level. And
- 9:13Speaker 3: so it's not that we see these things as competitive,
- 9:16Speaker 3: it's that we see the ETFs being the most appropriate
- 9:20Speaker 3: rapper for a certain group of people who are very,
- 9:23Speaker 3: very important in order for crypto to succeed. Who are
- 9:27Speaker 3: these people? A collection? You get retail investors who may
- 9:33Speaker 3: not feel technically comfortable enough to set up their own
- 9:37Speaker 3: wallets and exchanges. Exchanges sometimes get hacked. You need to
- 9:41Speaker 3: really be thinking a lot more about security and be
- 9:44Speaker 3: a little bit more savvy on the technical side for
- 9:46Speaker 3: you to feel comfortable with that. And so I think again,
- 9:50Speaker 3: it depends on what kind of investors, but certainly there
- 9:54Speaker 3: are a lot that benefit from the ETF ETP rapper
- 9:58Speaker 3: and it all bans the crypto market, which is incredibly
- 10:03Speaker 3: positive for all of us.
- 10:04Speaker 1: I want to go into the topic of Kathy Wood.
- 10:07Speaker 1: Obviously ARC Investment stepped away from the spot ETF with
- 10:11Speaker 1: you guys, what was the reason? I guess first, and
- 10:15Speaker 1: do you feel like this has a bigger impact on
- 10:18Speaker 1: you guys long term, because I would say ARC stamp
- 10:22Speaker 1: of approval would be a very positive thing for the market.
- 10:24Speaker 1: I feel like it would be, but I wanted to
- 10:26Speaker 1: get your input on it.
- 10:29Speaker 2: So I can't.
- 10:30Speaker 3: I can't speak directly to the motivations of ARC here
- 10:37Speaker 3: what I can. What I can say is that based
- 10:41Speaker 3: on their public comments, these products are very early. They're
- 10:46Speaker 3: not exactly doing a ton of revenues or profits for
- 10:52Speaker 3: the time being, and we're very long term believers that
- 10:56Speaker 3: they will. But at about twenty one base points, which
- 11:01Speaker 3: is roughly where the entire industry is, there isn't actually
- 11:05Speaker 3: that much revenue or profits for these products over.
- 11:08Speaker 2: The short term.
- 11:11Speaker 3: Our relationship with Kathy and with ARC started with a
- 11:16Speaker 3: shared love of research. And some people don't know this,
- 11:19Speaker 3: but ARC is actually an acronym. It stands for active
- 11:23Speaker 3: research knowledge and Kathy's background as an equity researcher, our
- 11:30Speaker 3: love for education, as you've mentioned, in research is what
- 11:34Speaker 3: brought us together. A lot of their research has been
- 11:36Speaker 3: on bitcoin, and again I can't speak to the motivations
- 11:43Speaker 3: of why they chose not to pursue this, but at
- 11:46Speaker 3: least publicly. The lack of revenues and profits made it
- 11:50Speaker 3: seem like this was not perhaps as high a priority
- 11:53Speaker 3: item for them, given everything else that they're working on
- 11:57Speaker 3: at the firm. From the twenty one shares perspective, regardless
- 12:03Speaker 3: of what ARCS priorities are. Like I said, we're the
- 12:07Speaker 3: world's largest issuer of these things. We've been doing it
- 12:09Speaker 3: for six or seven years, and while we are perhaps
- 12:13Speaker 3: a new name in America, it is a market that
- 12:16Speaker 3: we've done exceptionally well in with the Bitcoin ETF and
- 12:20Speaker 3: one that we intend to continue to invest in. And
- 12:23Speaker 3: it may take a little bit while longer again because
- 12:27Speaker 3: it's a new muscle that we are training, and we
- 12:29Speaker 3: haven't been as active in the market as some of
- 12:32Speaker 3: our competitors, but it is absolutely both a market and
- 12:36Speaker 3: a product that we intend to continue investing in and
- 12:39Speaker 3: bringing additional products to market in as well.
- 12:43Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so I think that's a you know, fair
- 12:47Speaker 1: enough answer in the sense of it is early in
- 12:49Speaker 1: the in the cycle of how many of these things
- 12:50Speaker 1: are going to be going I understand, you know, ARCS position,
- 12:53Speaker 1: especially in mainstream you know, on Wall Street obviously, staking
- 12:57Speaker 1: is a big topic right now with Ethereum one of
- 13:00Speaker 1: the biggest, if not the most staked digital asset out there.
- 13:04Speaker 1: A eight of course is active on your fund. If
- 13:07Speaker 1: you think about that and the opportunity of staking ETFs,
- 13:10Speaker 1: do you feel like that is the next wave coming
- 13:13Speaker 1: in for a lot of these digital assets.
- 13:17Speaker 3: So I don't know about the order, right I don't
- 13:20Speaker 3: know if we list in America an additional crypto acid
- 13:26Speaker 3: beyond ethereum first, or make Ethereum a stakable ETF first.
- 13:32Speaker 3: I don't know how the timing will shake out on that,
- 13:34Speaker 3: But what I can tell you is that our ambition
- 13:38Speaker 3: is absolutely to create a staking ETF our customers wanted.
- 13:43Speaker 3: I think American investors deserve to have the staking yield.
- 13:47Speaker 3: And again from the vantage point of being very active
- 13:53Speaker 3: and having massively successful products around the world, we've seen
- 13:56Speaker 3: this before. There are a few jurisdictions where we've launched
- 14:02Speaker 3: stakable ethereum ETF's first, and there are a couple of
- 14:07Speaker 3: jurisdictions where the regulators felt most comfortable first launching Ethereum
- 14:12Speaker 3: without staking and other assets without staking, and then over
- 14:16Speaker 3: time we've been able to build that in and upgrade
- 14:19Speaker 3: the product. And so it's absolutely part of our plans
- 14:23Speaker 3: and something that we will continue to lob be for.
- 14:26Speaker 3: I don't know when exactly it will happen, but I
- 14:29Speaker 3: do think it is a matter of when, not if.
- 14:33Speaker 1: Which is easier to sell right now? Is the bitcoin
- 14:35Speaker 1: etf easier to sell? Or are you finding people asking
- 14:38Speaker 1: about the ETHTF more what seems to be the hot topic.
- 14:43Speaker 2: That's an interesting question.
- 14:45Speaker 4: So I.
- 14:47Speaker 3: Would say that bitcoin certainly has a bigger brand. I
- 14:52Speaker 3: think more people have heard of bitcoin. A lot of
- 14:56Speaker 3: people associate crypto with bitcoin. It's still a massive amount
- 14:59Speaker 3: of the to little crypto market cap, and it's the
- 15:03Speaker 3: it's the og, it's it's what started this whole thing.
- 15:10Speaker 3: Ethereum is much more interesting on a fundamentals level. And
- 15:16Speaker 3: while Bitcoin is this interesting digital gold equivalent, which is
- 15:23Speaker 3: insurance against bad fiscal and monetary policy, which is very
- 15:30Speaker 3: relevant across the world, and I would argue it's relevant
- 15:34Speaker 3: in America as well, but in a different way. Americans
- 15:38Speaker 3: love investing in gold, and our fiscal and monetary situation
- 15:43Speaker 3: is not quite as dire as it is in other
- 15:46Speaker 3: parts of the world, and that still makes sense. Ethereum
- 15:49Speaker 3: is actually using the blockchain. Ethereum is actually moving money,
- 15:54Speaker 3: building smart contract applications. Ethereum makes revenue as a network
- 16:01Speaker 3: from running smart contracts. And so when people think about
- 16:06Speaker 3: the promise of crypto, when people think about building a
- 16:09Speaker 3: new internet for anything that requires trust, which includes the
- 16:13Speaker 3: financial world but includes a lot of other applications as well,
- 16:17Speaker 3: they think of smart contract platforms, Ethereum is the single
- 16:20Speaker 3: largest one, and this kind of application and others like
- 16:25Speaker 3: it will be run on smart contract platforms like Solana,
- 16:29Speaker 3: like Ethereum, like all the others, and it's a fundamentally
- 16:33Speaker 3: different kind of thesis, still tied to crypto, still tied
- 16:38Speaker 3: to blockchain.
- 16:40Speaker 2: But we typically we typically see people.
- 16:45Speaker 3: Either invest in bitcoin for a gold bug fiscal insurance
- 16:51Speaker 3: monetary policy insurance kind of reason, or Ethereum for the
- 16:55Speaker 3: pure technological innovation and disruption aspect of it, although obviously
- 17:00Speaker 3: given crypto, we sometimes see people invest in both. But
- 17:04Speaker 3: I do think it attracts different at least a different
- 17:07Speaker 3: thesis for each as.
- 17:09Speaker 1: Yeah, well you look at this in comparison of the
- 17:11Speaker 1: S and P. I mean, people would look at something
- 17:13Speaker 1: like an Nvidia as the ethereum of what we're seeing
- 17:17Speaker 1: over here, most innovation versus core stocks within the S
- 17:20Speaker 1: and P away from the MAG seven. Then yeah, I
- 17:22Speaker 1: could see that being the case very hot right now,
- 17:25Speaker 1: even though we've seen a retracement on that on the
- 17:27Speaker 1: Mac seven. I think maybe we're going to start to
- 17:30Speaker 1: see a little bit of a renaissance here on digital
- 17:32Speaker 1: assets moving forward. I was looking at a tweet you
- 17:34Speaker 1: guys had Slana caught up with Ethereum in almost every
- 17:37Speaker 1: metric user's fees trading volume. There's a close ten billion
- 17:41Speaker 1: worth of bitcoin on Ethereum and only eighty six mili
- 17:44Speaker 1: on Solana, So why is there such huge descripting of
- 17:46Speaker 1: what is needed to close the gap. So this was
- 17:48Speaker 1: a big stream that you guys did explain to me
- 17:50Speaker 1: a little bit more about Solana and the potential here
- 17:53Speaker 1: for an etf Is this one that you feel like
- 17:57Speaker 1: could come faster or you feel like Ethereum's going to
- 18:00Speaker 1: be kind of the play over the next little bit
- 18:03Speaker 1: here before we see something many people are predicting twenty
- 18:06Speaker 1: twenty five.
- 18:09Speaker 3: It's public news, so it's very clear that we've already
- 18:13Speaker 3: published a listing application for Solana, and so it betrays
- 18:18Speaker 3: how bullish we are and how we think about that asset.
- 18:24Speaker 2: We also have.
- 18:24Speaker 3: Listed the world's first Solana etp and the world's largest.
- 18:28Speaker 3: We have about a billion dollars in our European Solana products,
- 18:32Speaker 3: and so we're very, very familiar with the Solana ecosystem
- 18:36Speaker 3: and again quite bullish and early supporters of it. I
- 18:42Speaker 3: can't speak to when these things get approved, but I
- 18:47Speaker 3: do believe that with respect to Solana, it's partially the
- 18:57Speaker 3: same thesis as ethereum. If you believe that blockchain based
- 19:01Speaker 3: applications and crypto in general is going to get this
- 19:05Speaker 3: renaissance as you've described it, then it's quite conceivable that
- 19:11Speaker 3: five years or ten years from now, the smart contract
- 19:15Speaker 3: platforms may likely eclipse bitcoin in value, because again bitcoin
- 19:21Speaker 3: has a ceiling that is maybe synonymous with gold. If
- 19:24Speaker 3: gold is worth about eight trillion dollars you mentioned the
- 19:27Speaker 3: Magnificent seven, they're probably worth a little bit more than
- 19:31Speaker 3: that technology and generalyster than that. And so I think
- 19:34Speaker 3: Solana Ethereum, smart contract platforms in general the very very
- 19:38Speaker 3: bright future. We're a core part of it, and we
- 19:41Speaker 3: will continue to push that, and we were loving a
- 19:45Speaker 3: lot of the innovation that worth seeing on the Salana ecosystem.
- 19:48Speaker 3: It's a bit of an upstart, but it does a
- 19:51Speaker 3: lot of things much better, and a lot of those
- 19:55Speaker 3: things happen to be areas of criticism the theory.
- 20:01Speaker 1: That being the case, if you look at just XRP
- 20:04Speaker 1: not a security been deemed that, why would we not
- 20:08Speaker 1: see maybe because there's no futures needed there? Why not
- 20:12Speaker 1: see an XRP maybe go to market much faster here.
- 20:15Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about what could be on the move
- 20:17Speaker 1: here over the next twelve months. What are your thoughts
- 20:20Speaker 1: on that?
- 20:22Speaker 3: So, just given our position, Paul, we listed the world's
- 20:27Speaker 3: first and have the world's largest ripple ETP, we're bullish
- 20:33Speaker 3: on XRP as an asset. We've published a lot of
- 20:35Speaker 3: security sorry, a lot of research about it, and we've
- 20:39Speaker 3: been comforted by a lot of the court decisions that
- 20:41Speaker 3: have come up.
- 20:44Speaker 2: On it not being a security.
- 20:47Speaker 3: I would say that it's absolutely part of our product
- 20:50Speaker 3: vision and ambition globally, not just in America. And part
- 20:57Speaker 3: of our thinking was, if you're in being approved, Solana
- 21:03Speaker 3: is actually pretty similar in a lot of ways, right,
- 21:06Speaker 3: and so sometimes it could be easier to make the
- 21:09Speaker 3: case for something that rhymes with what has already been approved,
- 21:14Speaker 3: rather than starting from scratch. On a new asset, but
- 21:17Speaker 3: it doesn't speak to any broader statement or judgment on
- 21:22Speaker 3: rippl xor.
- 21:24Speaker 1: Okay, So with all of that, we've got, you know,
- 21:27Speaker 1: some things happening within the opportunity here outside of traditional
- 21:33Speaker 1: digital assets. This is a clip that goes into, you know,
- 21:39Speaker 1: just in gaming in general, and I wanted to kind
- 21:41Speaker 1: of get your opinion because I'm wondering if we're going
- 21:43Speaker 1: to see some of that kind of movement into the
- 21:45Speaker 1: ETF side of things. Let's go to a clip real quick.
- 21:50Speaker 4: To approve the creation of Olympic Sports games. Who is
- 21:57Speaker 4: in favor of the creation of olyn peak E sports games?
- 22:02Speaker 4: Please raise your hand a clear maturity. But again we
- 22:06Speaker 4: let go for the ones who do not support the
- 22:12Speaker 4: no votes, please no vote no. Then this appears to
- 22:17Speaker 4: be correct. Is there an abstention?
- 22:21Speaker 3: No?
- 22:21Speaker 4: Thank you very much, my dear friends and colleague. With
- 22:26Speaker 4: your vote, you have created the Olympic Sports Games. Congratulations
- 22:33Speaker 4: and thank you very much.
- 22:36Speaker 1: So esports one of the biggest things out there, were,
- 22:39Speaker 1: especially in gaming, large growth crypto community very attached to that.
- 22:43Speaker 1: Most likely we're going to see tokens pour into that sector.
- 22:47Speaker 1: The potential for that, especially as gaming starts to become
- 22:50Speaker 1: much more popular, and the major companies that are playing
- 22:53Speaker 1: in this, whether it's Sony, Apple, matter, you name it,
- 22:58Speaker 1: we could see an explosion in this area.
- 23:00Speaker 2: How will you guys.
- 23:01Speaker 1: As asset managers start to look at this market going forward?
- 23:05Speaker 3: So I'll give you two answers, one personally and one
- 23:09Speaker 3: as the twenty one Shares hat that I sometimes wear
- 23:13Speaker 3: a lot of the times, where on a personal basis,
- 23:16Speaker 3: I'm a computer nerd that grew up playing a lot
- 23:20Speaker 3: of these games, the world of Warcrafts and the Ruinscapes
- 23:23Speaker 3: and these virtual worlds with virtual currencies, and it's very
- 23:28Speaker 3: clear that there's a ton of demand for them. And
- 23:30Speaker 3: it's clear that there is a lot of applications for
- 23:34Speaker 3: crypto in various ways. On the money part, certainly, but
- 23:38Speaker 3: also with respect to identity, with respect to non fungible
- 23:42Speaker 3: token NFTs, with respect to ownership, with thinking about that overall,
- 23:48Speaker 3: a lot of this will be built on a smart
- 23:50Speaker 3: contract platform. Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, etc. Are some of
- 23:57Speaker 3: the biggest ones, and so it directly benefits crypto and
- 24:00Speaker 3: I find this stuff very exciting. It's part of tech
- 24:04Speaker 3: innovation where we don't really know where this is going,
- 24:09Speaker 3: but it could go in a number of different ways,
- 24:12Speaker 3: and we probably can't predict where it's going, because you know,
- 24:16Speaker 3: if I made you predict where we would be in
- 24:20Speaker 3: twenty twenty four back in nineteen ninety eight, it's very
- 24:24Speaker 3: likely that none of us could have predicted where we
- 24:27Speaker 3: are now with Amazon or Uber.
- 24:29Speaker 2: Or airnb or anything.
- 24:31Speaker 3: And so I'm very, very excited by the innovation, and
- 24:34Speaker 3: I think there's a clear set of things that I
- 24:37Speaker 3: think crypto can help out with that I can see,
- 24:40Speaker 3: and I believe that's a minority of the innovation that
- 24:42Speaker 3: we are likely to see. So that's very very exciting.
- 24:45Speaker 2: Now with my twenty one shares.
- 24:47Speaker 3: Hat, it's a wait and see.
- 24:51Speaker 2: So we have a lot of.
- 24:54Speaker 3: Rules internally for what kind of assets we list and
- 24:59Speaker 3: when we them. We've lifted some assets that have to
- 25:04Speaker 3: do with NFT blockchains and things like that. There's a
- 25:09Speaker 3: flow blockchain that Crypto kiddies and I believe NBA, top
- 25:13Speaker 3: Shot and others have.
- 25:14Speaker 2: Been built on.
- 25:16Speaker 3: Very excited about those kinds of things, but we list
- 25:19Speaker 3: them relatively late in the cycle because we need them
- 25:23Speaker 3: to get to a proper level in terms of market
- 25:26Speaker 3: cab volume sentiment. They need to have weathered some storms
- 25:31Speaker 3: and proven to be investable before we feel comfortable putting
- 25:34Speaker 3: them in an ETF wrapper and making it retail and
- 25:37Speaker 3: institutional accessible. So we've done it quite a bit with
- 25:41Speaker 3: some of these gaming platforms that you can see some
- 25:43Speaker 3: of these innovations on. But taking it to a whole
- 25:47Speaker 3: other level I think will take a little bit longer.
- 25:51Speaker 3: But again, given how excited I am on the innovation,
- 25:54Speaker 3: I do think this is yet another example of a
- 25:57Speaker 3: F when not if.
- 26:00Speaker 1: I think the point here is, you know these adoption cycles,
- 26:03Speaker 1: whether you look at the birth of the Internet, mobile social,
- 26:06Speaker 1: you know that you get real bell curves in there
- 26:08Speaker 1: that we start to see very significant onboarding and acceptance. Gaming,
- 26:14Speaker 1: of course, one of the largest, if not the largest,
- 26:16Speaker 1: most social interaction in technology that is out there on
- 26:21Speaker 1: the planet. Right now, A I could start to garner
- 26:24Speaker 1: that kind of level, but right now gaming would pretty
- 26:26Speaker 1: much control that. So it'll be interesting to see how
- 26:29Speaker 1: this plugs in. But I think you're right, you guys
- 26:32Speaker 1: are in the right place at the right time, and
- 26:34Speaker 1: the fact that you're you know, very innovative, forward thinking
- 26:37Speaker 1: and you're open to where the market flow is going.
- 26:40Speaker 1: I think that's very key for ASSA managers like you. So, Hanny,
- 26:44Speaker 1: it's been great having you on the show. Thank you
- 26:46Speaker 1: so much for coming in today. We appreciate it.
- 26:49Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. This was fun, you.
- 26:51Speaker 1: Bet all right. So you guys, make sure if you're
- 26:53Speaker 1: not in the Diamond Circle right now. It is our
- 26:55Speaker 1: own private group where we do additional content, more education,
- 26:58Speaker 1: a lot, more analysis of different projects, all sorts of
- 27:01Speaker 1: things that we do over there that don't necessarily always
- 27:03Speaker 1: make it here on YouTube or within our podcast stream.
- 27:06Speaker 1: So make sure and jump into the Diamond Circle. Just
- 27:08Speaker 1: click the link down below, and of course follow me
- 27:10Speaker 1: out there on x at Paul Baron. We'll catch you
- 27:12Speaker 1: next time right here on Techpath