Latest / The Paul Barron Crypto Show / Institutional ETH Buying Explodes!🚀Matt Hougan Bitwise INTERVIEW

Transcript

Institutional ETH Buying Explodes!🚀Matt Hougan Bitwise INTERVIEW · The Paul Barron Crypto Show

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Institutional ETFs are now on the move, skyrocketing, and of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: course some of the things we are watching is the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: amount of volume that are hitting these ETFs. We're gonna
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: have a good interview today. You don't want to miss it.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: My name is Paul Barren. We'll come back in a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: tech path. Let's get going. I do want to thank
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: our sponsor, and that is I Trust Capital. This is
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a place for you guys to go in and actually
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: set up a crypto ira and you can do this
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: with traditional assets.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Like gold and silver.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: If you want to look at that route, you can
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: also go into bitcoin etf as well as a whole
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: selection of all coins. So I have to do is
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: visit I Trustcapital dot com check and use our link
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: down below. It's going to give one hundred dollars funny
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: reward and you guys can get rolling on that.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We've been doing a couple of videos on Ethereum over
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks. You might have caught this
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: last one that we did actually two the all coin
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: season technical we did with Evan last week, and then
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: we did a Ethereum Bowl case and this one was
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: very well received by the community.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I thought, well, let's go a little deeper.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Let's get into some of the ETF movement that we're
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: starting to see, and get into that. When you look
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: at just the ethereum weekly engagement, this is a number
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: of unique addresses interacting with one or multiple chains on
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and within the ecosystem, you can kind of see big
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: bump last week. The question is why have we not
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: seen the ethereum price really make a move? And of course,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: hopefully today we're going to break that down for you.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I want to go to a clip real quick before
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: we bring in Matt Hogan. Here's a clip of Hilm
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: talking about it. Take a look, four year cycle? Is
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: it over?
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Woo hello over? Okay, hold on explained it doesn't matter.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: Yes, there may be this natural thing, but it's just
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: going to get bulldozed over. I think twenty twenty five
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: will be a great year. I think twenty twenty six
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: will be a great year. I think twenty twenty seven
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: will be a great year. And we'll see about twenty
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: twenty eight.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: All right, So let's just bring in the man of
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the hour, mister Matt Hogan.
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: There.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: That was a big prediction there thought, and I love
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the idea of no cycle, So why is your thesis
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: so strong on that mat.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: What causes the cycle historically is this sort of you know,
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: you get a catalyst, you get a build up, a momentum,
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: you have having, you get a lot of excitement, the
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: market gets a little overlevered, and then there's a negative
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: setback and we pull.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Back and restart. Okay, and then I think will still.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: Happen, Like investors are still greedy, the markets will go up,
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: they'll get over levered, they'll get cleaned out.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: That will still happen.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: But the point I was making at Pomp's conference is
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: you have this other thing, which is effectively the US
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: government has made crypto legal. It's allowed large financial institutions
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: to move into the space. It's removed a huge regulatory overhang,
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: and we're just in the early stages of realizing what
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: that means. And what it means is there's trillions of
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: dollars of capital and the smartest financial minds in the
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: world coming into this market, and that's just a bigger deal.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: So will there still be this ripple, Yes, but you'll
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: just lose it amidst this massive tidal wave of institutional interest.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: This is the cycle if you want to use the
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: world where crypto goes mainstream, where institutions move into the space,
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: and that's just such a bigger deal than what's historically
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: caused these not little, but these cycles in crypto.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: It's just too big a force.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: To deny anything that you're watching this year, you think
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that we'll really start to maybe ignite this.
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: I think we've already seen it on bitcoin. So on
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: bitcoin you have this fundamental supply demand mismatch where you
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: have institutions, corporations, and governments moving into the space. And
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: that's the reason why bitcoin has outperformed even tech stocks.
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: Usually during volatile market periods, bitcoin underperforms. You're seeing it
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: outperform because it's already into this institutional phase. For the
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: rest of the market for ethereum on down to get
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: into this phase. I'm really looking towards legislation moving through
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: Congress on first stable coins and then market structure. Those
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: are the two all clear signals that the largest financial
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: institutions in the world can move into the space beyond bitpoint.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: And I think if we get this, which many people
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: think we will get before the August Congressional resource recess,
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: I think that will be what catalyzes us and moves
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: us forward.
• 4:18
  Speaker 6: All Right.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: With that being said, because we're getting into kind of
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the regulatory environment right there, and you're talking about the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Trump administration, their first hundred days in office are now
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: pretty much on Q. What would you give President Trump
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: and the administration in terms of a score on their
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: first hundred days.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: I find I can't give them one score, Paul. It's
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: like the best of times and the worst of times.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: So from a cryptospecific perspective, I would give them something
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: in the mid to high nineties. They've delivered on their
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: core promises to crypto. You've seen the SEC shut down
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: multiple lawsuits that were hamstringing the industry. You've seen the
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: FDIC shut down Operation Choke point two point zero, which
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: was restricting companies access to banking. You've seen a White
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: House Executive Order making the growth of digital assets a
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: national priority and establishing a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and a
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: crypto asset stockpile. Those were all sort of crazy dreams
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: to have a year ago, and they've all happened. The
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: other score, however, is they've introduced a lot of shocks
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: into the economy. I know that we're sort of smoothing
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: out from the initial tariff tantrum. But they have introduced
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: a lot of uncertainty and volatility into the market, and
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: that's what's kept these assets from rising to the upside.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: So maybe it's like a ninety five from crypto and
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: then a lower score from the broader macroeconomy, and those
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: have netted out to where we are today. But generally speaking,
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: I'm hugely optimistic. The most important thing for crypto is
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: that crypto regulatory setting, and that's just gone exceedingly well,
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: So I'm very positive.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I like it good news.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I think the forefront here and of course it could
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: be in a very interesting spot right now. If you
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: look at the ethereum spot ETF total, this is total
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: net inflow, you'll start to see a little bit of
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: action happening here in the last few days. Of course,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: we haven't seen these kind of moves really for quite
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: some time. Do you feel like this is setting ethereum
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: up back to your point for institutional grade awareness to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: where we're going to start seeing some heavy activity. What
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: are your thoughts on predicting ethereum moving forward from here.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: I think it's a positive sign. I don't think we're
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: in the all clear yet, Paul, But I think it's
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: a positive sign. You know, for Ethereum to enter a
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: new bull market, it needs to turn two keys. One
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: key is we need this regulatory switch to turn. We
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: need stable coin legislation. We need market structure legislation that
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: lets big institutions move into the space. I think we'll
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: get that before August, at least a down payment on that,
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: so that key will turn. The other half is on
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: the Ethereum side itself. The community has been confused about
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: the direction that it's been going. The Ethereum Foundation has
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: recently articulated a new direction. It recognizes the issues that
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: have held it back over the last few years.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: That's the first step towards curing those issues.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: If that can continue to move on a positive path
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: and we get this positive regulatory development, I think you're
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: going to see a very strong Ethereum bull market. If
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: either of those two faulters over the next few months,
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: I think we could see more sort of volatility and
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: treading water for a long term investor, you know, looking
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: out a couple of years. I think it's a phenomenal
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: moment to build a position in EAT. We have huge
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: stable growth, huge defile growth. But we're going to have
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: to monitor those two things to see how fast that
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: bullmarket materializes.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at your fund holdings right now. You've got
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: your weight obviously on Bitcoin at seventy nine point four percent,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: nine percent on ethereum, five four percent on XRP, then
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: sole on our around three percent. So the stronger positions
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: they're obviously Eth, XRP, Salana, Bitcoin. When you look at
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Eth versus where bitcoin because bitcoin, let's assume that we do.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I just saw you know, standard charter, a charter come
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: in at anticipating around on one twenty. By Q two
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: or in Q two, that would be significant another all
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: time high. The likelihood though is we could see a
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: pretty significant run on ethereum. Would there be a position
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: for bitwise to maybe increase that holding on ethereum.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Well, look, we're very bullish on Bitcoin. We're very bullish
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: actually on ethereum. We're bullish on Salona or bullsh on XRP.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: You know, within within that index strategy, it'll reflect what
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: the market is doing in some of our other strategies
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: we made position Alternatively, I do think there are a
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: lot of investors out there who have moved into bitcoin
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: as their first crypto asset for the first time over
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: the last year, and if I was one of those investors,
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: I would wonder if now it is time to broaden
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: out your portfolio. If you're a new one to investor
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: who's bitcoin only, there is more to crypto than bitcoin,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: so maybe consider if now is it a good time
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: to broaden it out.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Well, I think some of the research is going with
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: you on that. Here's a research report that showed cryptocurrencies
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: that you currently own, and this is looking at mostly
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the younger investor, and it's pretty interesting. In twenty two
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: is seventy seven percent Bitcoin now holding around seventy four
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: ETH somewhat flat at forty nine, but still almost fifty
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: percent right now of the younger investor starting to move
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: on that. Obviously, Solana continued to move up even those
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: has been increasing overall. Ripple though, of course, went from
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: six percent up to twelve percent, obvious for reasons with
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: the lawsuit now being off the cusp of where Ripple's
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: been holding. But the point is is to your exact statement, there,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: diversification for these crypto assets seems to be happening now,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: and I think this is going to open up some
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: biggerpportunities very soon. When you look at just in general,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: the XRP e TF and I'm thinking XRP to ETF
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and ethereum ETF, which do you think is going to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: be the easier to sell to an investor coming in?
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: That's a tricky one.
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: So whether we get an XRP et F, of course,
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: I don't know, and I can't speak to bitwise as
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: specific ETF. Broadly speaking, I think you have to look
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: at you know, are people, how excited are people about
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: each ecosystem. One of the things XRP has going for
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: it is that there are people who are skeptical of it,
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: and then there are people who are strongly bullish on XRP.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: I think one of the challenges ethereum has had is
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: it's more mixed, more people in this sort of nuanced position.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: You even heard my take which was it.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: Could be a great time to buy if we see
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: these conditional news environments. So I think an XRP ETF
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: will resonate, particularly with the people who have been bullish
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: on that space but want exposure in an ETF format,
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: and maybe the fervency of xr peoples will make it
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: attractive in terms of acid gathering out of the gate.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you just look at the amount
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: of SEC I won't say approvals, but nods. And this
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: is more the scenario that's happening with pro shares getting
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the launch of three xrp ETFs. And of course we've
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: already seen a large number including bitwise, that have applied
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: for this, so this could be just around the corner
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: with obviously the new chair coming in for sure. Let's
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: talk about ethereum staking because this came in from jeff
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Seyfert over from Bloomberg. Tons of people asking about ethereum
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: ETFs taking approval times talking about this. The final deadline
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: is around the end of October, but potentially an intermediate
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: deadline before the prime final approval sometimes in sometime in
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: May or late through late August. So back to your
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: timeline here a lot with maybe the regulatory framework that
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: would play into this. Do you feel like we are
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: going to get an ETF staking framework by that period
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: that James is talking about.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: I think your base case should be that the SEC
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: uses its full calendar window to consider this because it's
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: complex and for complex issues, you know, an organization like
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: the SEC tends to take its time. It's certainly been
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: the case that under this SEC versus the previous SEC,
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: we've seen some things accelerate.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: So I would think of it.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: I apologize for giving a nuanced answer, Paul, but I
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: think of it from a probabilistic basis. So your base
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: case should be it takes until the end of October
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: before they decide. But I wouldn't wait the probability of
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: it happening earlier at zero, because we have seen that
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: happen on a few sort of complex items from this SEC.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: So if you're waiting at zero, that's probably wrong. If
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: you're waiting at one hundred percent, you know you're more
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: certain than I am. It's it's greater than zero, but
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: less than one hundred percent.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So we'll take that as an answers.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: I'm going to lean into.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe this will give us a little bit more of
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: a clarification, because I'm looking at holdings right now, on
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: chain holdings.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: This is on ethereum.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: In the ETF side, you've got blackrock setting in a
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: fairly significant across this gray scale course leading the way
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: right there. Bit wise is in there as well. But
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: you look at Blackrock holding a large percentage, especially within
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: eth in general.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Why do you think that is?
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Why do you feel like they have been able to
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: lean so much into the ethereum ecosystem.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: I mean the beautiful thing about Blackrock is they're the
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: largest asset manager in the world. They're a hugely respected name,
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: and they're able to introduce concepts to a huge number
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: of investors just from their scale and breadth. I think
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: everyone in the crypto industry they are competitor of ours.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: But I say this sure meaning it. I think everyone
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: should be thankful that they're out there advocating for the space.
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: I think the message you can read from that pall
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: is that when you present ethereum just sophisticated investors, some
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: portion of them want exposure to that. That tells you
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: a lot about the direction this is going, because more
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: and more investors are going to be presented with this
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: concept of ethereum in the coming years. Right, we're still
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: early in this process, so I see that as a
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: down payment on where we're going, and as signed that
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: there is institutional adoption and institutional interest for ethereum out there.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Well, you're in the news right here, This was back
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: in the end of last year. You acquired a four
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: billion dollar institutional grade eth staking provider.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: This was a testant.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: So all of this kind of leaning into the point
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: of ease staking is going to happen.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's going to happen.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: We're going to probably see it active, hopefully even more
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: effective than any updates on that investment there on bit
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Wise in terms of where that's going on that partnership.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it shows you the direction of asset
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: management in this space.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I think of staking as asset management. Right.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: We take in money from investors and we help them
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: gain access to those staking returns through our a testing
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: group or wise on chain solutions. Right, I think you're
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: going to see companies like bit wise doing more and
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: more on chain. Right, We're eventually moving to a world
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: pool where all of asset management exists on chain. That's
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: the direction of travel that we're going. This is another
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: sort of mile post in that direction. Bit Wise intends
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: to be at the forefront of it. But absolutely staking
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: is here to say it's a very important part of
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: the ecosystem. If you're a serious crypto investor and you're
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: not thinking about it, you're missing out on an important
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: piece of the puzzle, and we're really excited to be
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: playing a role in the growth of that space.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I think it's going to I think
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: that when you get into staking, it has so many
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: similarities to traditional investors that have never been in crypto before,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: because they understand how money markets.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Work, especially over the last couple of years, where.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: They're getting those yields in they can correlate that quickly
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: to a staking opportunity and immediately say, oh, that's the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: same as what I've been doing over here, except I'm
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: getting a little bit more volatility, a little bit more
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: risk means a little bit better upside on all of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: this going into it.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: So I've got a question for you.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: And you look at and this is more of a prediction,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and look at I look at what's happening in the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: real world asset side of things, and you see an
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: absolute just skyrocketing of RWA stable coin of course leading
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the way there with Ethereum. Do you feel like rdba's
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: in general will hit one trillion first or do you
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: think eth as a market cap could hit one trillion first?
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Well, that's a great question.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: The thing about it is I'm so bullish on the
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: RWA space, particularly if you include stable coins.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: I think we're going to get to a trillion.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: Really fast, so they will I think, I think my
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: answer would be RWA's first.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: But I think you an important point.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: Which is people thinking about Ethereum get lost in a
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: lot of these short term challenges layer one versus layer two,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: revenues versus current market cap. If you close your eyes
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: and imagine a world where we have multiple trillions of
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: dollars of stable coins and most assets move over public blockchains,
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: what do you think Ethereum is worth? I think that
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: can help you simplify the investment decision if you have
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: a long term outcome. Again, is there short term challenges
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: for Ethereum. Absolutely, But if you think standble coins are
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: going from two hundred and fifty billion to two and
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: a half trillion over the next couple of years, and
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: you think RBA's are going from you know, twenty billion
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: to maybe a trillion dollars.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: Over the same time period, what is eth worth then? Right?
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: I think it's worth substantially more than it's worth today.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: And sometimes it's great to take that thirty thousand foot view.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: It simplifies things a lot.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Blockchain has really started to roll off the lips of
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of people that had not mentioned that before,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: you know, a year ago, even two years ago. It
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: is now definitely in the consideration. Some news in right here,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Securitized Mantle launched an institutional crypto fund. As we all know,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: securitize highly connected to Blackrock. But the fund is also
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: in a grading liquid staking tokens. So this is going
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: to include mantles eth and then buybits, b Soul and Athena.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Does this tell you that we're going to see institutional
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: capital start to move more into this opportunity from a
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: liquid staking side.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Of things, Oh?
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, And it points to the challenge in staking is,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: you know, Paul, is that you lock up your assets, right,
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: That is the challenge. And so if you're running a
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: fund as an institutional investor, how do you provide liquidity
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: to investors who may come and go while still providing
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: the yield that staking offers. Liquid staking has been around
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: for a few years as a concept. I think what
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: you're seeing is it now being adopted into these institutional
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: funds because people have faith in it, right, which makes
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: sense when you have a new concept. You want to
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: see it tested in market volatility and up and down periods. Increasingly,
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: people feel comfortable with these liquid staking tokens because they've
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: been around, they've survived volatility, and so you're starting to
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: see them penetrate into these institutional solutions, which is really
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: important because that means institutional capital can participate in staking
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: without the inquidity lockups. It grows the market. So I
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: think it's an important example, and you're going to see
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: dozens of those examples, I would guess over the next year.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: For sure. I want to go to a clip real quick.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: This is Michael Stanishan.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: He's coming over from Securitize now former gray Scale guy,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and he talks about this very point. For this is
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: more for the audience, but take a look at this.
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: Most of the investors we talk to, they're actually comfortable
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: with their assets being issued on ethereum, and I think
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: that comfort is only going to grow over time. A
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: really good example of that is the growth of tokenized treasuries.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: If I have cash and I want to sweep it
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: into like a money market fund or a treasury fund,
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: that's kind of where my thinking and for probably most
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: people starts and stops in tokenized form, though, a tokenized
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: treasury or tokenized money market fund is actually taking on
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: a whole different life form, not just a place for
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: a dow or someone's balance sheet or a CFO to
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: part capital. It's actually starting to be used in the
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: crypto ecosystem as collateral. You're actually going to start seeing
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: integrations across wallets. You're going to start seeing the OTC
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: desks and the market makers begin accepting tokenized funds as collateral.
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: You're going to start seeing the centralized exchanges and the
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: DEXes start looking at these for collateral. And so the
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: growth is actually not just coming from user adoption, but
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: it's also coming from use cases that are being unlocked
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: in tokenized form that you're not seeing in a traditional sense.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: This just seems like a next generation for era for
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the financial markets. Are you seeing this much excitement right
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: now around companies like yourself as well as others that
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: you're talking to around all these new instruments.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, it's exploding, Paul, and I think it speaks
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: to where we're going, right. The good thing about this
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: boom in tokenized treasuries, this boom and stable coins, is
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: it brings people into the crypto ecosystem, which is the
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: biggest gap you got to get from zero to one
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: once you're using stable coins or token ized treasuries. Things
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: like DeFi are just you know, a little step further away.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: And so I think we're seeing a huge amount of
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: institutional interest, a huge amount of onboarding going on behind
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: the scenes. It makes me very optimistic, you know, about
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: where we're going.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Speaking of token i's treasuries, this is kind of interesting.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: This is the I in x CEO that he's talking
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: about the SEC and their move here recently around token
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: is stocks.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: But take a look at this clip.
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: We listed the six months ago token is securities like
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: in Vidia, Google, Microsoft, and Adios, and we received a
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: call from the SEC. They told us, guys, this might
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: be a swamp. This was like nine months ago, six
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: months ago, something like this. Last week with this new
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: administration in the US, we received the call from them
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: and they said, go ahead, it's okay.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: I don't think we can leave it on a bit
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: of night than that.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: That's that's a pretty bullish thing to hit.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: That's crazy. Go ahead, it's okay, coming that's exactly right.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, what a beautiful it's a wonderful thing.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I want to go over to and talk about Ether
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: upgrades here because obviously Eth has got a major upgrade
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: coming down the pipe here with Petra. This could be
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: another major leap forward within the ETH ecosystem. Obviously, it's
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: going to address a lot of issues that we've seen
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: within the ETH ecosystem. Gases have already started to come down.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: When you think about this upgrade, Matt, do you feel
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: like this is just the beginning of where we're going
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to see Ethereum really start to unlock a lot of value.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: You know, I think the community observing this really wants
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: to see this happen. They really want to see it
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: happen on time, and then they want to see the
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: next major upgrade come not in eighteen months, but six
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: months from now, right. I think it's for Ethereum to ship.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: I think it's important for it to deliver on its promises.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: It's important for it to grow the strength of the
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: l one. This, you know, Petra is the first example
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: of that. So I'm really hoping it goes off on
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: time and flawlessly, and that we rapidly move on to
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: the next major upgrade and you know, like another tripling
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: of gas. So I think that if we can do this,
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: you're going to start to see that reflected in the
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: Ethereum price. So let's monitor execution, and if we can execute,
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: I think the market will reward eth for it.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: All right, So you had Standard Chartered came out with
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: a one hundred and twenty k bitcoin price in Q two.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking Matt Hogan will come out with an ethereum price.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: In Q two.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: So what do you think, where do we like Ethereum
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: by end of year? Yeah?
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: Look, oh by end of you Look, if we get
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: execution on these upgrades, maybe even two x two upgrades
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: this year, and we get the passage of stable coin
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: and market structure regulation, you know you're looking at ethereum,
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: you know, doubling from here or more. We previously said
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: we thought it could get back, you know, above four thousand.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: I think we would need tremendous execution from the Ethereum
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Foundation and from the US Congress. But if we see
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: those things, and we see real growth of stable coins
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: and real growth of DeFi I don't think that's out
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: of the picture. It does face challenges if we don't
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: execute on that, so it's path ended, but I wouldn't
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: count it out. There is a pathway to see ETH
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: really start to catch up from a returns perspective, and
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: I'm hopeful we'll stay on those milestones. If we do,
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: I think it'll be bright days ahead.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Well, one thing to support your thought there if you
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: look at where unitchain has been over the past several months,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: which has been pretty significant growth. But also they have
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: this and I think Metallic is very proud of this
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: particular point, and that is really kind of getting down
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: to almost seamless interoperability, meaning one click almost just just
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: in instantaneous in being able to operate within the ETH ecosystem.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: So this could be pretty cool.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Which is going to make it easy for new people
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you know, that are coming into this space. For sure.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: It's the whole thing.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: The whole thing with ETH is we need one hundred
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: to one thousand x more people and more use That's
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: that's the game we're playing, and a lot of that
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: comes down to user experience, which sounds boring, but it
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: has to be easy. So I love the example that
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: you rate. It's not easy, right, Take someone who's not
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: experienced into the ETH ecosystem and have them bridge assets.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: It becomes a nightmare pretty quickly. If that can be
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: some doubt, we can unlock that upside, and you are
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: seeing these examples like the I think the eth community
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: has heard the feedback. They're starting to react. If they
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: build momentum in how they react to that as criticisms,
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: I think that'll be reflected in the.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Price for sure. I want to talk a little bit
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: about meme coins. This is actually a clip that kind
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: of references where we're going with this.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Take a look.
• 26:00
  Speaker 7: I'm fascinated. I used to think the whole story was
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: taking more savers and turning them into investors. I'm starting
• 26:07
  Speaker 7: to think that maybe there's a midpoint stop where somebody
• 26:11
  Speaker 7: becomes a trader first, it gets them comfortable with markets
• 26:13
  Speaker 7: and engage with I.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Saw that game stop right, A lot of those people
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: stayed in the market.
• 26:17
  Speaker 7: That's a really interesting story. So you know, maybe there's
• 26:21
  Speaker 7: a role that mean cooins can play in doing that
• 26:23
  Speaker 7: for long term investors in crypto and really the crypto
• 26:27
  Speaker 7: industry coming together and owning that is really important for
• 26:32
  Speaker 7: it to be a journey and not an endgame.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:36
  Speaker 7: Look, I'm the mother of teen kids, and I can
• 26:38
  Speaker 7: tell you my son, you know, doesn't think ETFs are
• 26:41
  Speaker 7: fun enough to look at from an investing perspective. And
• 26:43
  Speaker 7: initially was like, okay, well then you know, wait till
• 26:46
  Speaker 7: you're old enough. But now I think, like, I want
• 26:50
  Speaker 7: him to experience the markets, but I want him to
• 26:52
  Speaker 7: do it with some sort of guardrails around it. And
• 26:54
  Speaker 7: we know that that generation of investing is digital native,
• 27:00
  Speaker 7: consumes investment advice often from their peers and their social
• 27:05
  Speaker 7: media networks. You know, how do you position for that,
• 27:08
  Speaker 7: What is the right portfolio, how do you engage the investor,
• 27:12
  Speaker 7: and how do you sell it? Like what are our brands?
• 27:15
  Speaker 7: Because ultimately I think brand becomes increasingly important.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: All Right, So I didn't preface as to who that was,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: and I did it for a reason. And when you
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: listen to what she had to say, it sounds like
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: a very forward thinking tech person that's talking about this
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: is how the cycles are going. Consumers are shifting their
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: their very concept of how investing is being done.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: She mentioned that at that.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Was Blackrock that was talking like that, talking about meme
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: coins as an investment architecture for a lot of people
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: who are coming into the market.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: For the very first time.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: These are under thirty mostly your future customers, Matt, your
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: future customers.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: So I know you guys have doch going.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: But there's a great opportunity here for or the next
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: meme coin under bitwise.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: What would that be?
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Oh, the push for the Pengus.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: We're big penguin fans here here at bit wise. You know,
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: what Samara said is definitely true. You need to onboard
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: the next generation, and there is interest in these spaces.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: I think as long as mean coins are properly disclosed
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: and there's no insider ownership and no rug pulls or
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: no no undisclosed insider ownership, I have no issue with them.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: That's one of the reasons we like doge right. There
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: are no insiders who have special understanding of what's going
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: on in the doge ecosystem. It just is what it is,
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: and it is true that this resonates with the younger generation.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: So I love the I love the pengu idea. Thanks
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: for throwing it out there, all.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Right, Well, you guys obviously will know. You know, with bitwise,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: they've been a doge for quite a while, one of
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the first movers, and you know, everything has that cycle.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: But so do stocks.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: You know, everybody, there's always a favorite stock for one
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: generation or group. I remember when Tesla was like the
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: stock to get. You know, when you look at the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: under thirty crowd, they've started to navigate a little bit
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: more to Nvidia or even some of the emerging markets
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that are going to come out. So it's not too
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: far away from the meme coin market. Not that traditional
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: stocks are, but that's definitely how it's.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Going for sure. Matt.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: It's always fun talking to you. I love to get
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: your insights. I think you always bring some really good,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: down to earth understanding for people who are trying to
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: make sense of this market and are coming into it
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: for the first time. So I appreciate you stopping in.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: I appreciate having me, Paul.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: It's good to chat you bet all right, you guys,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: make sure and jump into the Diamond Circle. It's a
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: great place to get additional content from us. It's our
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: own private email group and it's absolutely free to you.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: We do a report each week that goes out to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: our group. It's a breakdown of where the markets are,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: a little bit of insights from our research teaman myself,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: and it's very easy to join, Just click the link
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: down below. Follow me out there on x at Paul Barren.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: We'll catch you next time. Right here on tech Path,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: the mot
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: Moting