Latest / The Paul Barron Crypto Show / Crypto All-Time Highs Coming🚀Matthew Sigel | VanEck
Transcript
- 0:06Speaker 1: My name is Paul Barren. Welcome back in the tech path.
- 0:08Speaker 1: Thanks so much for jumping in today. Before we get started,
- 0:11Speaker 1: I want to go to a clip that will give
- 0:12Speaker 1: us a little bit of an insert on what is
- 0:16Speaker 1: going on around not only the election results and the
- 0:19Speaker 1: impact that's having on crypto. Take a look.
- 0:21Speaker 2: It's been a good thing so far this week. So
- 0:23Speaker 2: you had the crypto industry spend more than two hundred
- 0:25Speaker 2: and forty five million dollars, more than two hundred and
- 0:28Speaker 2: eighty lawmakers elected to House and Senate seats with a
- 0:32Speaker 2: pro crypto stance, but also, as you mentioned, a pro
- 0:34Speaker 2: crypto president here who has promised to oust Chair Gensler
- 0:37Speaker 2: at the head of the SEC. Separately, you've got Robin
- 0:40Speaker 2: Hood up twenty four percent. They received a wells notice
- 0:43Speaker 2: related to their crypto business that may not materialize in
- 0:46Speaker 2: a lawsuit if you have different leadership over at the SEC.
- 0:49Speaker 1: That is a product of the.
- 0:50Speaker 2: Fact that Donald Trump has made many promises to this industry,
- 0:53Speaker 2: one that he will spend money on building out a
- 0:56Speaker 2: robust energy production and transmission infrastructure in the US to
- 1:00Speaker 2: make it more competitive in AI, and on bitcoin rollback
- 1:04Speaker 2: a lot of regulations that are standing in the way
- 1:06Speaker 2: of these actors.
- 1:06Speaker 3: Wow.
- 1:07Speaker 1: I was just looking at coinbase, so it shares up?
- 1:08Speaker 4: Was that right?
- 1:09Speaker 1: Thirty nine percent just this week?
- 1:10Speaker 2: Forty one percent the last five days?
- 1:12Speaker 3: Wow?
- 1:12Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, I want to bring on Matthew Siegel coming
- 1:15Speaker 1: in from Vanak to kind of break this down and
- 1:18Speaker 1: take a look. Hey, I've been watching you out there
- 1:20Speaker 1: doing the media tours. Excellent workout there, for sure. I
- 1:24Speaker 1: want to get into a little bit about your opinion
- 1:28Speaker 1: when you look at not only what happens obviously with
- 1:31Speaker 1: the S and P five hundred, the crypto stocks, you
- 1:32Speaker 1: look at micro strategies, Coinbase, many others that have some
- 1:36Speaker 1: relevance around bitcoin mining, and then you look at the
- 1:39Speaker 1: markets where they are right now, bitcoin reaching an all
- 1:42Speaker 1: time high. Do you feel that the crypto market has
- 1:46Speaker 1: finally got in a position where they are looking extremely
- 1:50Speaker 1: positive for more activity here in the United States?
- 1:55Speaker 3: Absolutely, Our conviction in bitcoin and digitalife that has never
- 2:01Speaker 3: been higher, especially now that the US has leadership that
- 2:06Speaker 3: understands the link between bitcoin, AI and energy and that
- 2:12Speaker 3: if we can get back to building energy infrastructure in
- 2:16Speaker 3: this country, that the US could swiftly lead in all
- 2:20Speaker 3: those sectors. So I think really like the number one
- 2:23Speaker 3: positive thing is just the impact on economic growth and
- 2:27Speaker 3: dynamism when you stop suing people for breaking rules that
- 2:32Speaker 3: have never been written down. And we're already starting to
- 2:35Speaker 3: see the positive impact of that. Salona founder Anatotally announced
- 2:40Speaker 3: that he'll do their flagship Breakpoint conference in the USA
- 2:44Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five, So it's great for US jobs
- 2:47Speaker 3: and GDP, and then obviously we think bitcoin is going
- 2:50Speaker 3: to be a major beneficiary. We can get into that.
- 2:53Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the key here with a lot of
- 2:55Speaker 1: the projects that I've been talking to that have had
- 2:59Speaker 1: a CLI situation where they don't necessarily understand where the
- 3:03Speaker 1: US is going. Yes, there has been some regulation alignment
- 3:07Speaker 1: that seems to be in place. Now we might well
- 3:10Speaker 1: most likely we'll have a White House administration that's going
- 3:13Speaker 1: to be somewhat pro crypto. Before we go further into this,
- 3:16Speaker 1: I want to kind of talk to you a little
- 3:18Speaker 1: bit about the strategy that a Trump white House may have, because,
- 3:22Speaker 1: as we know, Trump has been very vocal around bitcoin. Granted,
- 3:26Speaker 1: he's launched a handful of NFT projects, so he probably
- 3:29Speaker 1: has a little bit of a understanding around digital assets,
- 3:33Speaker 1: but the number of people that are encircling President Trump
- 3:37Speaker 1: right now. They may be all bitcoin. What do you
- 3:40Speaker 1: think that digital assets as a whole will get their
- 3:43Speaker 1: stake at the table as well with this new administration.
- 3:48Speaker 3: Absolutely. Trump has a DeFi project that he has built
- 3:52Speaker 3: on ethereum. He has a very successful NFT project that's
- 3:57Speaker 3: gone through several seasons also on ethereum and a layer two.
- 4:04Speaker 3: So yeah, he understands that this industry just needs a
- 4:10Speaker 3: little space to grow and figure out what are the
- 4:14Speaker 3: apps that are going to resonate with users. So we
- 4:18Speaker 3: do think bitcoin dominance has probably peaked here. You know,
- 4:22Speaker 3: we've seen some of the l ones like eth and
- 4:24Speaker 3: Solana perform better. You mentioned the bitcoin minors. Some of
- 4:28Speaker 3: that I think is just kind of the speculative forces
- 4:31Speaker 3: that are unleashed in anticipation of better policies, and to
- 4:36Speaker 3: your point, the devil will be in the details. So far,
- 4:39Speaker 3: the early look at personnel I think looks quite positive.
- 4:44Speaker 3: So yeah, we'll see.
- 4:45Speaker 1: I want to get into a tweet that you put out.
- 4:49Speaker 1: You know, lot of tail winds you're kind of looking
- 4:50Speaker 1: at here. China unveils about a one point for trillion debt.
- 4:53Speaker 3: Swap Yeah, the point of that tweet was highlighting some
- 4:59Speaker 3: money that's going on around the world, most notably in
- 5:03Speaker 3: China right now. And when you look at bitcoin and
- 5:05Speaker 3: digital assets over the long term, the strongest correlations are
- 5:11Speaker 3: a positive correlation with money supply growth, global money supply growth,
- 5:15Speaker 3: and a negative relation with the US dollar, the correlation
- 5:19Speaker 3: with the NASDAC kind of ebbs and flows depending on
- 5:22Speaker 3: the market structure. So, given the fiscal situation in most
- 5:27Speaker 3: of the world right now completely unsustainable, the ratings agencies
- 5:30Speaker 3: are telegraphing they want a downgrade. Sovereign debt where the
- 5:35Speaker 3: government tax revenue is a certain percentage of expenditures, and
- 5:41Speaker 3: in the US we've already passed those levels. So our
- 5:47Speaker 3: interest costs are more than twenty percent of government tax
- 5:51Speaker 3: revenues and that is the limit that S and P
- 5:56Speaker 3: at least is signaling that they're going to downgrade. So
- 5:59Speaker 3: the Global index had its worst month in October in
- 6:02Speaker 3: more than two years. And frankly, we're fielding calls from
- 6:05Speaker 3: allocators who are looking to increase their bitcoin exposure. I
- 6:09Speaker 3: think they're worried about the fiscal sustainability, They're worried about
- 6:12Speaker 3: long term interest rates and the multi decade bull market
- 6:15Speaker 3: that seems to have come to an end, and they're
- 6:17Speaker 3: observing that many of our former trading partners, now that
- 6:21Speaker 3: we've you know, US sanctions are up six hundred percent
- 6:24Speaker 3: in the last ten years, those trading partners are starting
- 6:27Speaker 3: to look for ways to disintermediate the dollar. I know
- 6:30Speaker 3: the mass media hates this story, but foreign exchange reserves
- 6:34Speaker 3: US dollar percentage of Ford exchange reserves are at multi
- 6:37Speaker 3: decade lows. Bricks countries are talking about building bitcoin mining infrastructure,
- 6:42Speaker 3: settling a portion of their global trade in bitcoin. So
- 6:45Speaker 3: it is important to you know, embrace this, get ahead
- 6:48Speaker 3: of it. We don't want all of our future trading
- 6:51Speaker 3: partners trading in a currency that we don't have a
- 6:53Speaker 3: significant position in black rock.
- 6:57Speaker 1: Of course, now the ETF is officially bigger than it's
- 6:59Speaker 1: go So from the bitcoin side of things, the real
- 7:04Speaker 1: question is is what does twenty twenty five look like.
- 7:06Speaker 1: Do you think this just outpaces gold at a clip
- 7:10Speaker 1: that is unbelievable. Do you think gold can keep up
- 7:12Speaker 1: on this?
- 7:15Speaker 3: I don't think gold can keep up in a bitcoin
- 7:17Speaker 3: bull market. Volatility profiles are just very different. They're at
- 7:21Speaker 3: very different stages of adoption. Gold is very well held
- 7:26Speaker 3: by central banks who own roughly eighteen percent weight. Bitcoin
- 7:30Speaker 3: is at zero weight, so it's really still a lot
- 7:33Speaker 3: of zero to one moments ahead of US for bitcoin
- 7:37Speaker 3: in terms of adoption. I'm going to El Salvador next
- 7:40Speaker 3: week to have a number of conversations there around how
- 7:43Speaker 3: their adoption of legal tender is going. You know, Senator
- 7:47Speaker 3: Loomis here in the US has the bill to establish
- 7:50Speaker 3: the Bitcoin reserve. You're going to see, I think a
- 7:52Speaker 3: close relationship between Trump and President Boukele in El Salvador,
- 7:57Speaker 3: and I think you're going to see the US just
- 7:59Speaker 3: being more opportunistic about engaging with countries where they are.
- 8:04Speaker 1: Matthew, I want you to take a look at a
- 8:06Speaker 1: clip here. This is Tom Lee and he's talking about
- 8:08Speaker 1: bitcoin as a reserve asset. Listen to what he has
- 8:11Speaker 1: to say.
- 8:13Speaker 4: It's going to be very difficult to fix the deficit
- 8:16Speaker 4: with just changes in taxes and spending. But it's probably
- 8:19Speaker 4: why bitcoin is kind of interesting here because it's potentially
- 8:23Speaker 4: a treasury reserve asset, and you know, as if bitcoin
- 8:26Speaker 4: rises in price, it actually helps offset the liabilities, which
- 8:30Speaker 4: is the deficit.
- 8:31Speaker 1: So you were at one fifty I think on bitcoin
- 8:33Speaker 1: were you but yeah, not necessarily by the end of
- 8:36Speaker 1: this year, or I think six.
- 8:37Speaker 4: Figures is still possible for it before the end of
- 8:39Speaker 4: the year.
- 8:40Speaker 1: You go, wow, six figures, So one hundred thousand dollars
- 8:45Speaker 1: bitcoin Bitcoin, of course trading in the high seventies right now,
- 8:48Speaker 1: breaking all time highs. What are your thoughts on that?
- 8:51Speaker 1: Do you feel like we have that kind of bull
- 8:54Speaker 1: run that is taking place? First of all, on that
- 8:57Speaker 1: question and then your opinion on a reserve asset for
- 9:00Speaker 1: the United States.
- 9:03Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think the market top is going to
- 9:05Speaker 3: depend on the reality what happens into Q one and
- 9:09Speaker 3: Q two, if we see that there is movement at SEC, Treasury,
- 9:14Speaker 3: occ all of these agencies. But my mental model for
- 9:20Speaker 3: kind of where bitcoin can go over this cycle, if
- 9:24Speaker 3: we look back at previous cycles, the smallest ever bitcoin
- 9:27Speaker 3: cycle was two thousand percent from the trough to the
- 9:31Speaker 3: cycle peak. If we did one thousand percent this time,
- 9:34Speaker 3: that would be one hundred eighty K, and I would
- 9:37Speaker 3: think that, depending on fundamentals, that could be an end
- 9:41Speaker 3: of twenty twenty five type of story. Our medium term
- 9:45Speaker 3: target of four hundred K would mean that bitcoin is
- 9:50Speaker 3: half the market cap of gold, so that would require
- 9:54Speaker 3: a bit more adoption as a reserve asset. That's a
- 9:58Speaker 3: medium term target, probably after or the next having but
- 10:01Speaker 3: I think to reach that, but you know, there will
- 10:03Speaker 3: be some central banks who dip in. We're already seeing
- 10:07Speaker 3: a number of nations that are mining bitcoin using the
- 10:09Speaker 3: government's own resources. Ethiopia and Kenya are two new countries
- 10:14Speaker 3: this year. Argentina is another one. All of them have
- 10:17Speaker 3: programs with the IMF, so you can see how bitcoin
- 10:19Speaker 3: becomes this negotiating tool when you have kind of an
- 10:23Speaker 3: unaccountable global institution that comes in and tells you to
- 10:26Speaker 3: raise taxes or they're not going to lend you money.
- 10:28Speaker 3: Bitcoin is an interesting kind of negotiating tool against that
- 10:31Speaker 3: type of external pressure. And then our long term target
- 10:35Speaker 3: three million dollars per coin by twenty fifty, very long term.
- 10:39Speaker 3: That is equivalent to US sixteen to one six percent
- 10:42Speaker 3: compound annual growth rate, and that assumes that bitcoin is
- 10:46Speaker 3: widely adopted by central banks, held at about a two
- 10:49Speaker 3: percent weight, and that there's a significant amount of global
- 10:53Speaker 3: trade that uses bitcoin as the settlement currency.
- 10:57Speaker 1: There's a lot of market caap dominance now hits a
- 10:59Speaker 1: new Altar. I'm high Solana training around two hundred bucks
- 11:02Speaker 1: right now, which is a significant up if you look
- 11:04Speaker 1: at it, but dominance at point three point eight one percent.
- 11:08Speaker 1: You look at Solana right now and you consider where
- 11:12Speaker 1: it could go and what it looks like by year end,
- 11:16Speaker 1: but more importantly, I think over the next maybe twenty
- 11:19Speaker 1: four months. What is your opinion on Solana and its
- 11:22Speaker 1: potential in the future.
- 11:25Speaker 3: Yep, So, I mean we've been consistent, Salona Buls. I've
- 11:29Speaker 3: been on your show a few times over the last
- 11:31Speaker 3: three years talking about it as being, you know, potentially
- 11:35Speaker 3: the best and fastest of these open source app stores,
- 11:39Speaker 3: the one that could really attract some financial activity that's
- 11:43Speaker 3: equivalent to what happens on Nasdaq, just because of the
- 11:46Speaker 3: speed of the blockchain. You know, the reality of whether
- 11:50Speaker 3: that happens is going to depend somewhat on the details
- 11:56Speaker 3: in January. So you know, my guess is that again
- 12:00Speaker 3: or will be demoted on day one, There'll be an
- 12:03Speaker 3: interim chair of the SEC, maybe it's j Clayton, while
- 12:09Speaker 3: Senate you know, works through the confirmation process for whoever
- 12:13Speaker 3: the formal pick is, you know, ideally SAB one twenty one,
- 12:17Speaker 3: which is the law that kept banks from holding crypto
- 12:20Speaker 3: on their balance sheets or customer crypto on their balance sheets.
- 12:25Speaker 3: I would hope that that's going to be repeeled within
- 12:28Speaker 3: one quarter, and I would expect that additional ETFs could
- 12:33Speaker 3: be approved perhaps within two quarters of the new administration
- 12:38Speaker 3: taking power, and I think that would really cement Solana's
- 12:43Speaker 3: status as a commodity. But alongside that, you know, I
- 12:46Speaker 3: think we'll also get staking for ethereum ETFs. I think
- 12:50Speaker 3: we'll get in kind creation and redemption for both BTC
- 12:54Speaker 3: and e ETFs, which will really make these ETFs much
- 12:57Speaker 3: more tax efficient, enhance the liquidity. And then we're kind
- 13:01Speaker 3: of waiting on what happens to Fit twenty one, which
- 13:03Speaker 3: is the Comprehensive Market Structure Bill, which I think may
- 13:06Speaker 3: be dead for now given the red wave. I think
- 13:09Speaker 3: the Republicans see an opportunity to get this rewritten. Even
- 13:12Speaker 3: the second draft by Senator Haggerty was still quite harsh
- 13:16Speaker 3: against DeFi in my opinion, So in order to kind
- 13:20Speaker 3: of get to that one hundred and eighty K target
- 13:23Speaker 3: and to be in the world where you know, alts
- 13:26Speaker 3: are outperforming for the next year and Solana is doing
- 13:29Speaker 3: very well, we need that fundamental follow through. I think
- 13:32Speaker 3: from the from the regulation will be helpful and that
- 13:36Speaker 3: can you know, we've got a Hope trade. Until then
- 13:38Speaker 3: there's that Hope's trades can be very good.
- 13:40Speaker 1: Yeah. Kind of curious with Solana their market cap now
- 13:44Speaker 1: one third of Ethereum, do you feel that Solana could
- 13:48Speaker 1: be on track to maybe catch Ethereum as a market
- 13:51Speaker 1: cap total.
- 13:53Speaker 3: I think it's definitely possible. You know, the trillion dollar
- 13:57Speaker 3: question here is is there going to be one l
- 14:00Speaker 3: one that has eighty percent market share? Or are there
- 14:04Speaker 3: going to be And that's like in specifically Google search
- 14:07Speaker 3: would be one example of an eighty percent eighty percent
- 14:10Speaker 3: plus winner, but or are there going to be two
- 14:13Speaker 3: or three that share that eighty percent? And if you
- 14:15Speaker 3: look at the online advertising market, it's you know a
- 14:18Speaker 3: little bit broader there. You've got Facebook and Google that
- 14:21Speaker 3: are kind of sharing eighty percent. I'm not sure. I
- 14:25Speaker 3: think investors need to own both. And it's definitely possible
- 14:30Speaker 3: that that Soul could catch Eth at some point.
- 14:33Speaker 1: Eth has now more than one hundred million an inflow
- 14:36Speaker 1: in the ETF. This is an upward of twelve percent
- 14:39Speaker 1: on the current move.
- 14:40Speaker 3: We've got a lot of views here at VANAC, but
- 14:43Speaker 3: my personal view is that ETHBTC has bottomed, that speculation
- 14:49Speaker 3: is going to return to this market for the next quarter,
- 14:52Speaker 3: and it's not going to ignore ETH given the accessibility
- 14:55Speaker 3: that the ETF provides. And the other thing is on
- 14:58Speaker 3: the fundamentals. If you just look at which chains are
- 15:01Speaker 3: generating fees. ETH had some major market share losses after
- 15:06Speaker 3: the Dang Kuhn hard fork that really slashed fees for
- 15:09Speaker 3: the L two's and there just wasn't enough activity to
- 15:13Speaker 3: make up for those fee cuts. But that dynamic kind
- 15:17Speaker 3: of bottomed in early September along with the ETH price,
- 15:20Speaker 3: and we've noticed ETH market share pickup quite a bit
- 15:23Speaker 3: over the last six weeks.
- 15:25Speaker 1: Gensler is most likely going to be exiting. I mean,
- 15:29Speaker 1: I would say one hundred percent positive. The real question
- 15:32Speaker 1: I have is, and we've been laying this out a
- 15:34Speaker 1: couple of times, you've got a few people mark you
- 15:36Speaker 1: Ada obviously a sitting commissioner now, but you also have
- 15:39Speaker 1: guys like Dan Gallagher and others that could be a
- 15:43Speaker 1: good position. Even Giancarlo has been thrown in there, the
- 15:45Speaker 1: former CFTC guy. What do you guys think, who do
- 15:49Speaker 1: you think is going to be potentially the new chair
- 15:52Speaker 1: over the SEC.
- 15:54Speaker 3: I don't actually think it matters too much. I think
- 15:57Speaker 3: there is an overwhelming consensus on the Republican side to
- 16:03Speaker 3: reverse all of Gary Ginsli's policies. Wait, it was out
- 16:06Speaker 3: this morning talking about that, So I don't think it matters.
- 16:10Speaker 3: I think Treasury secretary is a much bigger deal. So
- 16:13Speaker 3: there you have Scott Besson, who, according to polymarket, his
- 16:17Speaker 3: odds are now above fifty percent. He would be the
- 16:20Speaker 3: first ever pro crypto US Treasury secretary. And you cannot
- 16:24Speaker 3: underestimate I think what a big deal that is. The
- 16:28Speaker 3: guy who's kind of second in those betting odds, John Paulson,
- 16:32Speaker 3: kind of well known gold bull, does not like bitcoin.
- 16:36Speaker 3: So I'm pleasantly surprised to see besson odds rising even
- 16:40Speaker 3: after he gave those pro crypto comments to the FT.
- 16:45Speaker 1: You look at the current timing seems to be perfect
- 16:48Speaker 1: for this market. A little over two trillion right now,
- 16:52Speaker 1: the likelihood of that going to ten, twenty or even
- 16:56Speaker 1: fifty trillion over the next decade. What is van x
- 17:00Speaker 1: you know, course, right now in terms of digital assets,
- 17:03Speaker 1: as all you know from the entire market, the asset class.
- 17:06Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah, so we we have about one hundred and
- 17:09Speaker 3: ten billion dollars in assets across all asset classes right
- 17:15Speaker 3: by now. You know, around two and a half three
- 17:18Speaker 3: billion of that is in digital assets. So we're still
- 17:20Speaker 3: talking you know, one and less than two percent of
- 17:24Speaker 3: our of our assets. Yon van x CEO here thinks
- 17:26Speaker 3: that can reach fifteen to twenty percent over a reasonable period.
- 17:32Speaker 3: So you can do the math on that and look
- 17:34Speaker 3: at our price targets for some of these coins.
- 17:39Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the key here right now is how
- 17:41Speaker 1: quickly we start to see adoption not only from the
- 17:44Speaker 1: US population, but so I think that is going to
- 17:47Speaker 1: be a huge opportunity for a lot of investors, and
- 17:50Speaker 1: I think for also for a lot of young people
- 17:53Speaker 1: that we're really swaying this election to finally get in
- 17:57Speaker 1: a position where they can outpace inflation. So that's a
- 18:00Speaker 1: big deal going forward for sure. Matthew Siegel from van
- 18:04Speaker 1: K thanks again for coming in today. We really appreciate
- 18:06Speaker 1: your time. We'll definitely have you back as bitcoin cracks
- 18:09Speaker 1: the one hundred k mark. We're looking forward to that one. Thanks, Pam,
- 18:14Speaker 1: thanks so much for stopping in. Appreciate it all right,
- 18:18Speaker 1: so you guys, I will be back in studio today.
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