Latest / CRYPTO 101 / Ep. 700 Canary Capital Reveals Their Altcoin Winners for 2026

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Ep. 700 Canary Capital Reveals Their Altcoin Winners for 2026 · CRYPTO 101

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Crypto101 podcast, presented by Gemini, your bridge to the future of money.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome everyone, we have a great guest here for you today.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's Steven McLaren, he's the CEO.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's the founder of Canary Capital, and Canary Capital's a digital asset investment firm known for building some of the most innovative crypto ETFs in single trust assets in this market.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you're seeing an innovative crypto ETF hitting the market, there's a really good chance Canary Capital is behind it in some capacity,
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Brian, really nice to be here.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and we were right before we jumped on.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was saying, I'm really excited, truthfully, to have you on because I know Canary Capitals done some really fun stuff in the space, some impactful things in the crypto space.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But before we jump into that, we'd love to know a little bit about your background.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I'm actually, I'm a tradify guy that got into the crypto space full time almost 10 years ago.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: A little board in the bond market, you know, we were just, you know, it was like time, you know, bonds kind of got to a point to where they topped out and we decided that, or I decided that, like yeah, this is a little boring, y'all are kind of low spreads or tight, top of the market vibes.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And 2016 decided to go all in on the new technology that was out there.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for me, that was blockchain.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that, and I love that you have a traditional finding and it's background, and that makes a lot sense because of what you've been doing at Canary Capital.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: You want to give everyone all of our audience on our listeners at some insight on what Canary Capital is and what you've been building.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah absolutely so you know canary capital actually started as a hedge fund platform you know we've been running hedge funds in the crypto space for years and you know so we we started off canary running hedge funds and when about this time last year we saw an opportunity for ETF
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, all right, it's time for all coins to come live, Bitcoin and the ETH have gone out, and now we're going to go after everything else that we think are interesting.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we just started filing away out of nowhere.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's like, who are these canary capital people?
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think finally, somebody, people started realizing who the team was, because we've been around ETFs for a while.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, we sort of just came out of nowhere without saying anything and just started filing ETFs.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's a great point because I know myself personally who follows the news, you know, day in day out, hour by hour literally minute by minute, I started seeing canary capital pop up across my feed constantly and started to do more more research and you've created some of the most unique products in the market from.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: XRP to H bar to a marinade steak.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I believe I saw it to what we talked about earlier.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a big pingu fan.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you internally decide which assets get a trust or an ETF?
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what we look at is more of, you know, what we think the market demand is, you know, there's, there is a filter where, you know, we're not just putting anything out there because somebody might be a buyer.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we do have a bit of a filter.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: We want to make sure that we think it's going to be compliant.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: We think that it's, you know, interesting enough that we care about it.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, but really, it's, it's market driven.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if we think that there's a strong demand in the market,
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: we're going to go forward with it.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's why we went out with, you know, XRP Salana, obviously, the fourth largest and the, you know, well, fourth and sixth, because, you know, buying our B&B's, the fifth largest, but those are the, you know, the fourth and the sixth largest are sorry, third and the fifth largest, you know, and then you have, you know, and then I really love light coin.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I always have, you know, I thought it was brilliant when it launched, you know, just kind of being, you know, silver bitcoins gold, but what really interested me in light coin in the last two years.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: was the introduction of privacy features, optional privacy features.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think privacy is extremely important, especially now, a lot of people that are big, big coin people are starting to look at privacy now and thinking, okay, well, big coins don't its thing, what's out there on the privacy realm?
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think light coins are gonna be one of the winners.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then of course, H bar, which is a massive enterprise software support system and not even a real blockchain.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a little bit unique.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we thought that H bar was extremely important, even though it wasn't like a top five token, but the network itself is widely used, widely well received among more.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say more institutional when people say institutional, they mean Wall Street, but when I say institutional, when it relates to Hedera, it's more of the software engineers, the Intel Oracle enterprise data systems.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you make a you bring up a great point around light coin.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Actually went, you know, privacy's been like, as you know, you seem to have a pretty good pulse on the on the current space.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a popular meta recently with like Z cash and the mineros.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I actually just recently went down a little bit of a rabbit hole around light coin.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It made me a little nostalgic.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I remember back in like the 2017 days and falling Charlie Lee and everything they were doing.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: on light coin.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's certainly interesting how you look at these more speculative cryptos in you develop a thesis and a plan behind them.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why are a lot of firms focus on Bitcoin?
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: They focus on Ethereum.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you seem comfortable with these really non-obvious assets I should say.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Does that reflect in your actual conviction or your willingness to innovate for investors or a little bit all the above?
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, a little bit of the above.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the interesting things you asked me about my background, I actually took a little bit of time away from traditional finance years and years ago and worked at electronic arts, the video game company, in the mobile division right when the iPhone came out.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I saw firsthand just a explosion of new technology
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: and what was really interesting about that period of time was even before iPhone games came out we were doing acquisitions of companies in South Korea in Japan because they were five years ahead of the rest of the world when it came to mobile devices and mobile applications.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even in cryptocurrencies, you know, Japan and Korea is head and shoulders above everybody else as far as innovation and adoption.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I tend to look to see what's happening there first.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: and then kind of bring it back to the U.S. to try to get caught up.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what I learned in my briefstit in the video game business is that if you're not constantly improving and innovating, you're going to get behind.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for instance, when the iPhone came out, there were people at EA, particularly the CEO at the time, there was like, oh yeah, this iPhone thing is a fad.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember him saying that.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, yeah, you think it's a fad?
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, it's not.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a whole new operating system that people are gonna be building on that is so much more advanced than what existed.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: What existed at the time was Java and Brue, where the two main operating systems and that was like basically, you know, with Java and Brue, you can make, you know, snake on an iPhone, right?
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And iOS just made so many other things possible and things got left behind.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I actually look at Bitcoin the same way.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bitcoin was the first, it was the best.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's widely adopted, a lot of people use it for money, but will they use it forever?
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unless it keeps innovating, it keeps addressing some of the issues that are that are real issues in the world.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh... it could get left behind you know i don't think it's in that position right now but you know i'm constantly on the lookout for what is next and uh... you know my my previous company valkyrie you know we really focused on bitcoin and uh... you know we were part of you know the launches of you know the first
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bitcoin mining ETF, the first NASDAQ traded Bitcoin futures ETF, and then one of the many Bitcoin spot ETFs that launched all in the same day.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we were constantly innovating on the Bitcoin side of things, and once Bitcoin ETFs came out, I was like, all right, well, what's next?
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who's building really cool things now?
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I care about.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that point of view and it's very similar to how I try to look at markets as well.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you make some good points with Bitcoin.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it going to be the best payment facilitator out of all the crypto's?
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're not exactly sure.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's where it gets tagged a lot with being digital gold, a store value the first.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It has a great story around it.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon, but that doesn't mean to say,
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: that it's not going to give opportunity for more unique cryptos and projects and web three companies that are building to thrive in this area and it does seem like you really identifying some really unique ones and from an ETF perspective, I am curious from your point of view, it does feel like
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: These institutions, and we've noticed it because the Solani ETF recently came out.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're seeing a little bit just from like a lot, we've seen a second of days of inflows, but we're seeing a lot more appetite here for more ETFs surrounded around different tokens.
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think Canary Capital, you ever create a like multi basket ETF of, you know, to facilitate to all of these, you know, people are anxious to get in on them.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have already filed for another ETF that is more of an index.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: More to come on that, but at the moment, I think baskets are important and coming up with unique baskets is extremely important.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are some that already exist that have the top five, but the top ten.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: cryptocurrency by market cap and that you know those are you know obviously going to be well received but uh you know i think what we want to do next is come up with things that are a little bit more innovative that um pushes the envelope a little bit more on uh where we think the uh you know the pucks going.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and we were talking a little bit about this beforehand.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do like the Penguin token and the Penguin teams and I'll find it to a rice for anybody, but I always thought they'd been innovating some fun things in the space.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if that's what the abstract block came in all the gaming's, we'd love for you to kind of touch base on their project and what they've been building.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I absolutely love Pudgy penguins and that team.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: As far as,
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: All NFTs, meme coins, you put it all in the same category.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that they're the clear winners right now.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: What they've done, if you go back, there were some other NFTs projects that were really interesting for a short period of time, but they sort of fell away and, you know, but what Penguin's is doing is creating a real IP
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: and they figured out how to merge the two and to get excitement around that particular brand.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It kind of reminds me of Hello Kitty.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was never a collector of Hello Kitty, but it was such a huge
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, better than anybody else has, you know, you can go to Walmart and get the plushies, you can get the digital art online, they've got, you know, all kinds of special features that come out cartoons, but, you know, the IP really works.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's going to work for a long time.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the model that everybody else is going to end up following if they want to be successful.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: yeah that's some great callouts and i honestly just for my kids i just bought their children's book they released and you know i obviously have a connection to them and like what they're doing in the space and what my daytime job is i absolutely love what they're doing so felt like i needed to but i'm actually really personally excited to get it
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting how these IPs and web three are in crypto, even though it's a token, it can really relate to the end user and that's something you're identifying and really hats off to being able to identify that and then build something so real behind it for, you know, institutional institutions, it's just regular people to buy.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's one narrative in crypto that you think is I should say like massively misunderstood right now.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you have anything that
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, look, we've covered NFTs, obviously.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's both misunderstood.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's both misunderstood by people that are looking in and by people that are on the inside.
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's like, well, you know, punks are going to come back.
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And four days are going to come back.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, I just don't know.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think that they've had their time.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was like a quick come and go.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you're really paying attention,
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: penguins.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I honestly don't know anything else out there that has that staying power right now, but I'm probably missing something.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we've already discussed privacy.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's probably the most interesting narrative right now in the space.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to see a lot more
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: privacy projects taking off.
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: By the way, I think XRP is massively misunderstood.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll admit that I misunderstood it for probably the first 10 years of his existence.
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what they've done in the last few years is so interesting.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they've, they've truly taken their time.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've built financial rails, and they are now transacting on it, you know, by launching their, you know, their first version of a stable coin that, you know, RUSD, and it's getting a lot of traction, and it moves a lot more.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, cheaply and very quick compared to some other tokens on other chains, but I think that's, you know, that's probably another really misunderstood area, you know, and it took me a little while to to get there as well.
• 15:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Isn't it kind of amazing what we do?
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We see these things happening in front of our eyes, like what coins could be the best for cross-border payments or what's could be the best IP?
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you're in this space really paying attention, I'm sure everybody in our audience is eager to learn.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's it is a really fun place.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: to learn and develop it.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a little different that just looking at charts all days or technical indicators.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can get you can get plenty of that in crypto as well.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then there's this whole other world of how are we going to disrupt stuff?
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: How is this going to completely change the game if that's
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You could talk about it with banking.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You could talk about it with web three gaming.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: You could talk about it with real world assets.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: You could talk about it and say cross border payments.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's just so many different ways.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what attracted me to crypto.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a financial aspect that we all love, obviously.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then there's just this like every day you wake up and there's something new and you're learning.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously you've captured that with Canary Capital because you've been jumping on.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: certain assets that I'm big fans of and you know you're giving a lot of people the opportunity to broader reach to it.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well I got I have a question for you because you have this traditional finance backing and I love that but you're so in tune to the web three world I can tell well what mistake do you see kind of retail making over and over again but it does seem like institutions get right.
• 17:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well by the way I don't know if institutions get this
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: but retail certainly gets it wrong a lot.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Getting tied into one narrative.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: and thinking that, I mean, I've seen this across so many different chains, so many different tokens where it's like, okay, I am going to become a this token, Maxi and everything else sucks and I'm going to put blinders on, not see anything else and just put all my eggs in this one basket and pray that it all goes well.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then they get online and they get all said if anybody says anything,
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: the least bit negative about the token that they've got money in because, you know, they're all in, you know, they, you know, they have no choice, but to see the number go up and, you know, so you see a lot of wild emotions when people do that and go all in or something, you know, I tend to
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, look, I did, I was similar, you know, I mean, I would say when I was investing in crypto currencies, I was primarily in Bitcoin.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, it worked out.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know,
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: you gotta keep your eyes open and look out for the next thing.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you know, when the radio came out, it was an amazing technology that everybody around the world used and people still use it, but radio is old technology.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: hate to say it, but you're not going to make a whole lot of money in radio anymore.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you've got to be aware when something new comes along, it's sort of like, I'll also use that example of when everybody was like, you know, personal computers will never be a thing back in the early 90s, right?
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this Apple thing is crazy.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's ever going to use this.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why would you use a personal computer in your home?
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it just people get fooled and they think that the old technology that they're using is going to be there forever.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that absolutely applies to blockchain.
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can have a favorite project, but be aware that there are other projects that are come along that are competitive.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there is no clear winner ever over long periods of time.
• 19:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: There will always be new technologies to take over.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's so interesting, you say that because when I first got into crypto, which was rather early, I was like, almost a Bitcoin Maxi, you know, I couldn't really see the path for other tokens and people would probably look at me and be like, oh, you're kidding me now that like,
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm much more down the speculative side of things and I still still love Bitcoin.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love the story run digital gold I love the connection with the theorem and stable coins in Solana as a as a blockchain I mean there's they all a lot of these can all succeed and thrive But at one point my career or I shouldn't say career in my there's just before my career and it just my first got it And I was like Bitcoin only that's the only way I could see now I see the path for all different
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: technologies and tokens to thrive and really change the world and that's that's why I love it kind of my point earlier while I was just saying like it is a lot of fun to be in this space because there's so much innovation and there's so much change and you really want to be paying attention because not only you could miss the next best thing you don't have to play that game either you can you can still you know just be more conservative but like there's just this whole
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: changing and that's what I can tell you've done a canary capital is that you're changing ETFs.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: As we really thought they were, you know, who would have thought that said that there was of Trump or Mag or Ripple and Pengu, there's just the list goes on and on.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So really cool.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what's the next?
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say like 12 to 18 months looks for canary capital.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is there any partnerships or any vision that you're like, hey, everything glides up the way I hope.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is where we're going.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, look.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, we're, you know, we've got several partners already, mostly on, you know, on the exchange level that we're working with.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know,
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've got four ETFs out the door.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm hoping for eight more in the next 12 months.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And our goal is to really put a lot of different things out there and let them market aside, which is best.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's really the best way to, it's really one of the best ways to fund this space as well.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're putting a lot of good projects that have a token in an ETF format, you're opening the doors up to a lot of people.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: let the market aside, which one works better, which one's superior, let them do their due diligence, and hopefully the best projects went.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But by the way, that's not always how it happens.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the world of technology, it's often, it's got to be good technology, but it's often the one that's best marketed and best sold is the winner.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's also something to be careful of.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, really well said, and we appreciate you jumping on today before we go, love to give you an opportunity for people to learn more about you, and more about Canary Capital.
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we're a Canary.capital is where it's our website and canary at Canary funds on Twitter.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again, Steven.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Awesome, thanks for having me.