Odd Lots - The Episode That Turned Tracy Into A Bitcoin Bull

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Bitcoin has been on a tear lately, but it's been a bit unclear as to what's driving it. But whatever's driving it, co-host Tracy Alloway has given up her longtime skepticism on the digital currency and now believes in its value. This episode is why. We spoke with Meltem Demirors, the Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares, a firm that offers vehicles for investing in digital assets, about this year's move and why people are buying now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Saturdays and Sundays starting at 7 a.m. Eastern. Make us part of your weekend routine on Bloomberg television, radio, and wherever you get your podcasts. And welcome to another episode of the Oddlots podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthall. And I'm Tracy Allaway. So Tracy, uh, Bitcoin. I think we could just leave it there. Let's just bring on the guest.

Enough of the intro. No, we actually could. Let's just do it. Okay. Today we are going to be talking about Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, having another big year. As Tracy says, no need for intro. No need for banter here. Let's just jump right into it.

I love that. All right. So we are going to be speaking with a veteran of the industry to the extent that such a thing can even be described these days. We're going to be speaking to Meltem DeMiris. She's the chief strategy officer at CoinShare's. Very visible, very big follow on someone great to follow on Twitter, media, et cetera. Meltem, thank you very much for joining us. Hey, great to be here.

Thanks for having me. So you're a veteran, right? It's okay. It's accurate at this point, right? I mean, what you said is correct. You know, I've been in this industry for six years now. If six years makes one a veteran, you know, I think it just speaks to how youngness industry is. Yeah, I mean, I think I read this weekend that it was just the 12th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper. So I guess that means literally half of the time that the industry has been in existence you've been involved in it. I mean, and arguably, you know, in 2012, when personally I started interacting with Bitcoin, like the way you bought, you didn't buy Bitcoin, you would go to a website to Bitcoin Fawcett, you know, buy Bitcoin on Craigslist, you would send money to Japan to buy Bitcoin on Gox. So arguably, you know, the industry didn't really exist until 2013 or so. So I know we skipped the intro, and I think that's in all thoughts first, but it kind of. kind of speaks to, I guess, the craziness of the year that Bitcoin has actually had. So I'm looking

at the chart right now. Bitcoin is hovering around 13,000. And the amazing thing about Bitcoin, I guess, is just how many times it seems to have come back from the dead in some way or the other. And I will admit, as a journalist who's been covering the space for a long time, I think at this point I've written at least three obituaries for Bitcoin in one. way or another. I think I did one in like 2012 and maybe another one in 2017 or 2018. Why has it come back this year? Look, Bitcoin as an asset, right, behaves in a cyclical manner. There are shorter sort of cycles that occur. And then there is a larger secular trend, which has sort of been up into the right, because in each successive high, Bitcoin,

hits a higher high and the lows are not quite as the prior quite as low as the prior lows. So I think what you're seeing here is the coin operates typically, you know, we've seen so far as roughly two-year cycles, although it seems like that pace is now in increasing. And as a result, you know, there's sort of short-term interim cyclical behavior, but a larger term secular trend that obviously myself and many other people in the industry building firms are looking for and tracking against. What is coin shares? What do you do there? Yeah, so coin shares is a great question, Joe. We are a financial services firm. We are best known as an asset manager. We manage 1.1 billion in assets in the form of publicly listed exchange traded products. They're traded throughout Europe under the XPT provider brand. So we've been in that business for about five years. We're also in the trading business, the venture capital business, and a variety of other financial services products.

that's what we do. So one thing I'm curious about given the role that you just described, I keep seeing Bitcoin described as a diversification strategy this year, especially for corporate treasurers. Is that something that you're actually seeing in the marketplace at the moment? Yeah. So we've actually done a lot of research on Bitcoin as a portfolio diversifier. I think it's certainly true that in March, you know, investment committees, corporate treasures around the world looked at the makeup of their portfolio and realized something probably needs to change. Now that we're entering into November and coming close to the end of the year, we're in a really interesting sort of environment. First, you know, I used to work in corporate

treasury before I got into Bitcoin. So part of me feels an affinity for corporate treasures around the world who are looking at the universe of investable assets. And at the end of the day, you know, when I was in corporate treasury in 2014, I was at ExxonMobil. And I recall at that point in time, our cost of capital was effectively zero, meaning we could borrow at very, very low rates. And that environment, I think, continues to persist for many corporates, particularly in the U.S. And then we could deploy that capital in terms of, you know, opportunities to earn a yield on that capital. We could actually deploy that capital into the treasury market, into the rate market,

and earn a fairly healthy return, 3 to 5%, with very minimal risk. That environment doesn't exist anymore for corporate treasures. We're in a zero-interest rate environment. Target inflation is 2 to 2.5%. And so, you know, for a treasurer who's looking at opportunity cost, the idea of losing 2% per year to inflation while holding treasuries that yield effectively zero or holding 10 years that maybe yield, you know, what was it, two to two, two, two,

point five percent, that's not really an attractive proposition. So I think across the board, treasurers, investors, people who have capital to allocate or who have cash that they're trying to deploy towards productive uses, which at this point I think is most investors, they're looking at the universe of options and they need something different, right? We've seen gold had a breakout. I think a lot of investors, particularly individual investors, as well as some institutional investors, have been allocating into gold as a diversifier. And I think what's been interesting to observe, you know, as you've mentioned, Bitcoin's been through numerous cycles. It's been through ups and downs. I think historically, one of the core arguments we've always heard when we speak to

institutions, corporates, and investors about Bitcoin is concerns. around its volatility, it concerns around its cyclical nature, concerns around its lack of correlation, or now its correlation to macro markets. And I think for the first time what's happened is Bitcoin doesn't exist in a bubble. It operates in a larger market, operates in a larger political and social environment. For the first time, Bitcoin actually is less volatile than equities. And so I think in many ways, a lot of the thinking around how to approach portfolio construction has started to shift as investors and allocators look at the reality of the situation. And so I would say this narrative of Bitcoin being a portfolio diversifier is certainly something

we're hearing more of. But I would just caveat that by saying, you know, by no means is this the prevalent mindset? I think as we look at most firms and most of our clients, it's really only a small handful who've taken the leap into Bitcoin. I think for many, though, Bitcoin still feels in many ways reputationally risky. And many firms, particularly asset managers, are still waiting for validation from a blue chip firm that'll normalize sort of the entry into Bitcoin. So by no means do I think there's a wall of institutional money that's just going to start buying. up Bitcoin. So just on that note, a really practical question. But if you were a corporate treasurer,

how would you actually allocate into Bitcoin at the moment? What's the most efficient way of doing it? Yeah. So I think there are a variety of ways of doing it. The way it's been done to date is spot buying. So fortunately, Micro Strategy and Square both wrote up a brief documents on how they entered a Bitcoin market. So what we've seen is most treasurer spot buying. And then, so buying on the open market, using sort of a time-weighted average price over a specific duration, and then custodying the Bitcoin with a custodian that specializes in long-term storage of Bitcoin. However, in the middle of this month, we're going to be hosting a crypto credit summit where we'll be focusing on the emergence of a credit market around crypto assets, particularly in relation to people utilizing Bitcoin to earn

yield through lending it out to people to trade. So there are a variety of other ways. On the trading side, we look a lot at arbitrage opportunities between the futures forward curve and thought markets. And sort of playing that arbitrage, I think is an interesting way to gain short-term exposure without having so much long-term risk. We also see people buying structured products like our XPT provider product in the U.S. The gray scale Bitcoin Trust is popular. Canada has its own Bitcoin ETF. So there are a number of structured products that are now emerging. And then the last option is through a fund. And in the sort of fund world, we see variety of different strategies. A lot of them are very much a venture strategy where they

may have an allocation to Bitcoin and tokens. Some are a quant-driven strategy where they're actively trading around Bitcoin's volatility or maybe Bitcoin and other highly liquid assets. So there are a variety of different ways. But to date, what we've seen on the corporate side, at least, is primarily spot buying and then putting that Bitcoin with a custodian. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different

stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. So, so many questions based on that. Here's one that, so Tracy mentioned in the beginning as a journalist, she's maybe written three obituaries. Thank you for making that point again, Joe. Thank you. But Tracy, you're probably going to write like two or three more before all is done. Do you print those out? Well, so this is the interesting thing. This is the interesting thing.

I've written three obituaries for Bitcoin, but each obituary for Bitcoin has been about the death of a Bitcoin for a particular purpose. And this is what really interests me in crypto. Because when it started, it was all about disintermediation, all about not trusting the central bank. And then fast forward to 2020. And now everyone's talking about intermediation and how they want big asset managers to get into the space. So I'm sure in a year or two, I'll probably be writing the obituary for that particular idea. But it's always a different sort of facet of Bitcoin that comes up. Yeah. And look, I think this evolution of the

narrative is a function of the world changing and Bitcoin's place in the world changing. right. Again, I think the hard part here is Bitcoin doesn't exist in an isolated vacuum, right? As the world changes, so does the market. So do other asset classes. So does Bitcoin. And so I think the hard part is and the interesting part for me. I think we're finally in a market narrative where Bitcoin actually starts to make sense. We've been in a bull market for the last 11 years, really since the last financial crisis when the Bitcoin white paper was written. And I was a little baby, leave in college, I thought I was going to be an investment banker. That didn't happen. So I ended up working in the energy industry, which maybe in a way turned out to be a good choice because I ultimately

ended up in Bitcoin. But look, this is the first time that we're watching Bitcoin in a down market. We've had two back-to-back quarters of economic contraction. I think we can officially say we're now in a recession. And I think Bitcoin's behavior in our recession is very different than Bitcoin's behavior in a booming macro market. So all of these sort of narratives coming together constantly are changing Bitcoin's form and function in the broader economic system that we're all a part of. So I think, you know, this evolution of narrative is going to continue until Bitcoin reaches a point of maturity. And that may take another three, five, seven, ten years. Here's something, here's like a contradiction that I see that I help me wrap my head around it with Bitcoin.

So it's like there's just this incredible industry, community, movement, culture associated. It's extremely impressive. On the other hand, and in a way, you know, it's extraordinarily large in a sense. According, I'm looking at one of the measures right now that the total value of all outstanding Bitcoin, sometimes it's called The market cap is $250 billion. That's a lot. On the other hand, that's like a sort of medium-sized software IPO these days or maybe a little bit bigger than some like red hot cloud company. Yeah.

And so like is Bitcoin bigger small? Because on the one hand, like it's extraordinary. On the other hand, like it's like a regular like sort of like middle of the NASDAQ stock. Joe, I mean, Joe, you answer the question. Bitcoin's teeny tiny. Right. Apple has enough spare cash on its balance sheet to buy. the entire Bitcoin market cap.

Bitcoin's teeny tiny. Right. And if we look at the universe of assets and asset allocators, Bitcoin continues to be minuscule. In relation to where it started, Bitcoin's massive, right? Everything is relative. I mean, I remember Bitcoin trading at $250. And we were like, oh, my God,

we just broke a billion dollar market cap. Like, this is huge. So look, everything's relative. But again, I think this is part of the challenge. it's sort of a chicken and egg problem until Bitcoin's market cap gets larger and the market gets far more liquid, market gets deeper. You're not going to see people allocating to Bitcoin in size because the market cap is simply too small, right? So this is actually, this leads to something that I wanted to ask, which is, can Bitcoin be both a viable financial asset and one that's expected

to largely go up in value and a method of payment at the same time? I think this is a great question, Tracy. And I think here, again, what's great about Bitcoin is so much of the way people articulate Bitcoin is really tied to their personal view and their personal beliefs. And what's interesting is that one asset can have so many different permutations, so many different characterizations that lend themselves to whoever is sort of, you know, doing the pontificating. In my view, I don't need to use my Bitcoin to pay for coffee, right? I think one of the criticisms of Bitcoin has been like, oh, you can't pay for coffee using Bitcoin. Well, great, because I don't want to spend my Bitcoin on coffee.

Really not my intention holding Bitcoin. There are a lot of other cryptocurrencies, and in particular, even U.S. dollar assets that are blockchain-based, that will allow me to buy my coffee. So when I think about Bitcoin for me personally, and I think for many allocators that we talk to, The view on Bitcoin is this is really more like a savings account, right? This is really more like a savings technology. And the majority of people who are holding Bitcoin who are using Bitcoin, at least in today's instantiation, are not using it for transactional purposes necessarily. They're using it as a store of value and as a form of sound money.

And so, again, I do think that narrative has shifted over time. In the past, I certainly have used Bitcoin to pay. pay for things. In the future, I may use Bitcoin to pay for things. Sometimes it's actually cheaper and faster to use Bitcoin than it is to use my bank account, which is really fascinating and very sad in a way that in the year 2020, you know, in this fintech boom, it's still incredibly difficult to send money. But look, I think, you know, beauties in the eye of the beholder, in my view, most investors are not buying Bitcoin with the intention of spending it in the future. It's really about having a savings technology. It's about having the ability to sort of remove your assets from

the existing financial system. And Joe, I definitely recognize the point you made earlier that, you know, in today's Bitcoin environment, everyone's becoming an intermediary. So in a way, you know, it's slightly antithetical to the original stated goal of Bitcoin, which was to minimize the role of intermediaries in our financial lives. What happened in the end of March with Bitcoin? And obviously all of financial markets sort of collapsed. But Bitcoin, you know, for all to talk about Bitcoin as a diversifier, I think it had one of its biggest short-term sell-off either ever. Do you feel like you have a good handle on how the volatility that we saw in markets overall translated into sort of like liquidations and margin calls from this asset that's very sort of apart from traditional financial markets? Yeah, look, I think what happened at the end of March is symptomatic of how people act in times of crisis. People panicked, right? And in a time when everything's going down, you're panicking, you're trying to sell everything that's not bolted down. And Bitcoin, right, just like every other asset is highly saleable, highly liquid. So we saw a lot of selloff in Bitcoin because people were trying to take risk off the table. They were uncertain, you know, they were fearful of the future. So we saw Broadway sell off. I think we What happened in Bitcoin that exacerbated the sell-off, you know, we saw 50% drop in a 24-hour period was the result of the fact, you know, in Bitcoin.

And one of the things that's unique about the Bitcoin market structurally is the derivatives market in many ways has outpaced the spot market. And in many ways, the forward curve is driving what's happening in the spot market. So I call this the tail wagging the dog in a way. So right now Bitcoin is in contango, right? but for a long time, Bitcoin futures weren't backwardation, meaning Bitcoin in December was cheaper than holding Bitcoin today. And so there are a number of different firms in the Bitcoin ecosystem that spread between the future expected price of Bitcoin and today's price of Bitcoin.

What was interesting that happened in March in the midst of the sell-off, I think a lot of people had been positioned into Bitcoin going into sort of this expected financial contraction. A lot of people were like, okay, this is Bitcoin's time to shine. You know, it's an uncorrelated asset. Bitcoin's going to do incredibly well, just like gold. And when that didn't happen, what you saw was sort of a cascade of liquidations that then further dragged down the price. And so one of the benefits, though, is a lot of weak hands got taken out of the market.

A lot of that cell pressure was removed. But I do think, you know, a lot of people are expecting Bitcoin to behave on a very short-term cycle and the economy to react very quickly to money printing. Like inflation doesn't happen overnight. So I think part of its people just understanding that this market cycle, this market narrative will take much longer than expected to play out because inflation hasn't even come close to setting in yet. Do you think the inflation hedge is still a big reason that people are buying crypto, even

though we've had years and years and years at this point of central banks undershooting their inflation? The inflation is coming, Tracy. it's just a matter of time. It's right around the corner. Have you heard? But Joe and Tracy, like, look, this is the great thing. I love the Hyatt quote, which is the purpose of economics is teaching men how little they understand.

Right. That's true. Right. I've pressured the quote, but it's something like this, which, you know, I studied economics and math. And, you know, you pontificate, but, you know, there's always a wrinkle. look, I hate to use this phrase, but like, we're an unprecedented time. I think nobody has a crystal ball. And if they did, you know, they certainly would be trading it instead of talking about it on a podcast. But look, at the end of the day, we haven't seen this before. And to your point, right, we've printed a lot of money. Inflation hasn't really set in. I think it's more likely that we'll have deflation rather than inflation. So I do think that inflation, narrative is important around Bitcoin. If we look at, you know, the Paul Tudor Joneses of the world, if we look at the micro strategies and squares of the world, if we look at this developing

narrative around Bitcoin as an effective portfolio diversifier and Bitcoin as an effective hedge in the current market environment, much of that narrative is in fact centered around Bitcoin's behavior in an inflationary period and the fact that Bitcoin is a deflationary aspect. That Bitcoin is a deflationary asset by nature. And there are no asteroids we can mine for more Bitcoin, unlike gold, because asteroid mining is a thing that also comes up on regular races. What about solar-powered satellites that get extremely cheap energy? That could happen, right? Yeah, totally. And look, one of the great things about Bitcoin is it's a money battery. So places in the world where there's cheap access to alternative energy that cannot be utilized

for industry and creation of economic value, those regions of the world are now looking at Bitcoin as an effective monetary battery, right? A way of transforming stranded alternative energy into monetary energy in the form of Bitcoin. Canadian women are looking for more, more to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are at them.

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Elliott inviting you to join us for the Bloomberg Hot Pursuit podcast. Every week we bring you news and industry insight on everything cars. And we do a whole lot more than just talk about cars, Matt, we actually get behind the wheel of basically every latest model, especially the luxury ones and the sports cars direct from the showroom floor. It really is remarkable how many cars we have access to. I feel a little bit guilty about it, but everything from $40,000 EVs to exotic half million dollar supercars. We also speak with the insiders who shape the automotive industry from the top CEOs and collectors to visionary designers and racing champions. Search for Bloomberg Hot Pursuit on YouTube, Apple, Spotty. or wherever you get your podcasts. Maybe you listen while you're on your weekend drive, maybe go into cars and coffee.

Listen to us talk about what we are driving this week. That's Bloomberg Hot Pursuit. I'm Matt Miller in New York. And I'm Hannah Elliott in Los Angeles. Subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts. So in all seriousness, and I actually do think that's a pretty interesting, pretty interesting avenue to be explored. In all seriousness, I want to go back to something you said earlier because I think

it's probably the most sort of like provocative, controversial thing in this whole conversation and the thing that'll piss a lot of people off potentially. You said, as far as you can tell, outside of here, there, there really is not that much. The wall of institutional money, the big tidal wave that everyone thinks is coming any day now, or all these huge funds are going to allocate like 2% and Bitcoin's going to go to the moon. You don't think it's really happening. I don't think it's happening right now. I think it's going to continue. to be a slow trickle. At the end of the day, you have to remember there's a process that someone goes through. Right now, the part of the cycle we're in is people are okay entertaining conversations

about Bitcoin, which wasn't the case even a year ago. The world's largest banks are recognizing like, hey, it's okay to entertain a conversation about Bitcoin. But you have to remember that at the end of the day, right, someone being willing to learn and someone actually making decision to do something, they're two very different things. And I think, again, you know, you look at the people who are allocating capital, by and large, you know, Warren Buffett didn't invest in tech stocks until what, like the late 2000s. You know, people aren't paid to take a high level of risk. That's not their function. Most people are in the role of preserving capital rather than pursuing growth, particularly in potentially high risk assets. I think, again, just the incentive structure that's in place for institutional asset managers. isn't necessarily to be out on the frontier taking risk. They're learning about it. They're educating their clients about it.

They're looking at different opportunities to provide access, but I don't think anyone's racing out to buy Bitcoin quite yet. And I think it's going to continue to take time. And the Bitcoin market also is going to continue to evolve, right? It really wasn't even possible until 2018 to buy Bitcoin options in size, right? And today the size, the option market, is multiple billions of dollars a day are traded.

So the fact that the market's still really mature, the fact that people are still early in their learning process, the fact that there are only a small number of companies that can even cater to institutions, I think all of these are just indicative of the fact that it's still early. And at the end of the day, I think part of what's also changing is the clientele

of large asset managers is starting to change, right? I think you see this with, you know, the acquisition of e-trade, the acquisition of some of these fintechs and retail-oriented brokerage platforms, like asset management is looking at avenues for growth in higher margin products and services. And it could very well be that crypto provides that avenue. But I think the form that takes will not look or feel anything like Bitcoin in its sort of pure form. it'll sort of be a Bitcoin depository receipt. Like you get an IOU for a slice of Bitcoin. So there's one other thing that has outperformed even Bitcoin this year, and that is Ethereum. And this sort of gets to even better than Bitcoin.

But this kind of also gets to a criticism that you hear about cryptocurrencies quite a lot, which is that even though Bitcoin itself, the supply of Bitcoin, is limited and it's deflationary, you have all these competing coins and you have competing cryptocurrencies that could basically start at any time and then take off in one way or another. Why do you think Ethereum has outperformed this year? Yeah, I think Ethereum's outperformance is very simple. Ethereum this year has had a breakout year because of the rise of something called DFI or decentralized finance. Basically, it's using the sort of smart contract programmable money feature

of Ethereum to create all of these entirely blockchain-based investment contracts and interest-generating opportunities. And the way this actually surfaces, and it's interesting to look at, if you look at the velocity of Ethereum, right, the velocity of Ethereum is much higher right now than the velocity of Bitcoin, meaning on average, Ether's total market cap, the amount of ether out on the market is traded and turned over on a faster clip than than Bitcoin. And what this means is people are actively out in the market using ether much, much more. And I think there's also been a really interesting consumptive demand for ether, where the way you interact with a lot of these contracts is by utilizing Ethereum as the asset that

you sort of post as collateral to earn yield in these new tokens. And so again, I think it's really been a breakout year for the functionality and sort of this emerging use case of Ethereum and its technology in the ecosystem of assets built on top of Ethereum. Bitcoin doesn't have that, right? Bitcoin has Lightning, which is sort of a payments technology that's built on top of Bitcoin, but Bitcoin doesn't have this whole ecosystem of programmable financial assets built on top of it. And so I think this has been really interesting trying to observe. We're certainly We're watching it closely. Our largest product is obviously their Bitcoin tracker, but our Ether tracker now has over

250 million in AUM and continues to grow. So I think the interest in Ethereum growing has been really great for the space. And look at the end of the day, you know, we're very excited about there being multiple assets that people are going to allocate to. However, when it comes to institutions, I think Bitcoin is going to be the first asset they get comfortable with just because it has had such a long history. I think a lot of the data that exists around Bitcoin and understanding the Bitcoin network and the security of the Bitcoin network is much more robust.

And then if we look particularly at market infrastructure, Bitcoin options volumes, you know, are 10 times that of Ethereum options volumes. So I think while there's a lot of interest in Ethereum from people who are native to the space and we're deploying ether in the space and sort of these consumptive new finance applications that create effectively liquidity sync for ether, I think Bitcoin continues to dominate the narrative when it comes to the quote-unquote institutional market,

which I think is one that we track more closely in our day-to-day at coin shares. Is there ever going to be a U.S. Bitcoin ETF, or by the time that will exist, Do you think that Bitcoin will be easily purchasable on enough different platforms everywhere that it won't really be necessary? Yeah, this is the question we ask ourselves as well, Joe. I think at the end of the day, you know, U.S. Bitcoin ETF, we haven't seen it yet. It does not look promising right now.

I think, you know, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has repeatedly stated that, you know, it's very unlikely under his tenure that we see such a product come to market. But at the end of the day, you know, ETFs are a huge part of the U.S. asset management market. And what we've observed certainly from having our products in the European market, which is an ETN, is fully collateralized with the underlying, is people really like having the ability to buy digital assets in their retirement account, right? Particularly if this is a secular bet, the ability to point, click, and buy exposure to Bitcoin or ether or basket of assets in my tax advantage. savings account, an investment account that's really attractive. Today, there are a number of firms like Kingdom Trust, which is a large custodian, and a handful of others for providing people with the ability to buy Bitcoin in their 401ks and with their IRAs. Still very nascent. I do think a US Bitcoin ETF will be impactful. I do think, though, we're seeing more and more avenues developing,

and I'm not sure how many folks will be left who want to buy Bitcoin but are able to, you know, come to three years from now when the SEC gets to a point where it's ready to approve such a product. But what we are seeing, right, is other jurisdictions are innovating. Other jurisdictions are launching Bitcoin ETFs and structured Bitcoin products. And at the end of the day, you know, it's only a matter of time until we see one of those asset managers perhaps successfully cross-listing in the U.S. wouldn't surprise me. We've certainly seen that unfold before at coin shares. And, you know, it's been, it's been interesting to see what the response has been like from regulators. But at the end of the day, other jurisdictions,

Germany, Switzerland, Canada, as I mentioned, even in Japan, are providing consumers with the ability to buy exposure to Bitcoin in a trusted, easy way through their existing brokerage account. And I think that continues to be a really important channel for the U.S. investors. And I think it's a real shame that it doesn't exist. Any other things that you think are sort of top of mind for you, Melton, before we go? Look, I think it's been a crazy year. It's going to continue to be a crazier. Tracy, I look forward to reading the next Bitcoin obituary.

I'll start writing it now. I'll get ready. Yeah, you should get some good quotes in there. But look, it's been such an interesting six years. And I'm sure that the next six years will be even wilder than my wilder. eldest dreams. So I'm excited. Great. Well, we'll have you back in six years. Meltem. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Tracy. That was great. Thanks. That was fun. You know, Tracy, I thought you made a really interesting observation talking about how Bitcoin obituaries over time

aren't necessarily obituaries of the currency itself, but all the different use cases that we've heard, you know, payments, cut out visa, smart contracts, et cetera, all of those sort of fade. And I think Meltem sort of corroborated that, which is that there is sort of like this, like, narrative is, I don't know if the word I'm looking for, it's like, it's like over time, various narratives fail. And then we're sort of like left with like some core thing. And these days, everyone talks about it as a savings technology. Yeah. You know, having had that conversation, I think I have to confess something to you, Joe. Uh-oh.

I think I'm actually bullish on Bitcoin. Oh, my God. But you know what? Oh, my God. Yeah, I know. Breaking news. But I think I'm bullish on Bitcoin because I'm bullish on people's, I guess, cognitive dissonance or the market's ability to generate narratives for this particular asset class.

Because I realize no matter what happens to Bitcoin. there are so many people who are committed to it at this point, so many careers that are sort of writing on it and a lot of money that's writing on it, that something else will always step in to take its place. You know, people will find a new bull case for it or a new use case for it, no matter what happens. So I guess I'm bullish on people's creativity for justifying cryptocurrency and therefore I'm bullish on cryptocurrency itself. This is really big. I think we've got to title this. This is the conversation to turn Tracy bullish on Bitcoin. But I actually think what you say is logical. Like at some point, it's like enough obituaries get written and then

they don't really like pan out or like Bitcoin survives or manages to find a new narrative and picks up new people and picks up new institutional avenues of money that it doesn't seem like it's going anywhere. And then as Milton pointed out, it's like still pretty small. So I think I think you make a good point, and I think this is a really historic moment for Bitcoin that is happening right now. It's the perfect postmodern financial asset, I think, because everyone can just project their own sort of dreams for an ideal economy and social system and financial system onto Bitcoin. So, yeah, that's how I'm thinking about it now. This is pretty big. Well, well done to our guest for convincing it. That's pretty big.

All right. Shall we leave it there? Let's save it there. This has been another episode of the Allotts podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Allaway. And I'm Joe Wisenthall. You can follow me on Twitter at the stalwart. And you should follow our guest on Twitter, Meltem DeMirers.

She's at Meltem underscore Dem. Follow our producer, Laura Carlson at Laura M. Carlson. Followed the Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesca Levy, at Francesca Today. And check out all of our podcasts under the handle. and podcasts. Thanks for listening. San Francisco. On April 4th, 2023, around two in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times

on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee,

beginning April 16. Thank you.