The Wolf Of All Streets - 3 Bitcoin ETFs Live On Stage Now: ETF Live Coverage | Crypto Town Hall

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

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Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 No, I showed you as connecting. Yeah, but it's okay. I just didn't want to talk to you. It's so much pressure that all these other people are in the room. It's weird. Yeah, no, the amount of pressure I have is like I have to – I'm trying to make it work. It's glitching and Scott's waiting for me and I'm trying to come up.
Starting point is 00:00:18 I force close it, reopen it. Scott's still waiting. I'm like, Scott, talk. Oh, you know, you can just tell me in the chat. Go ahead and talk. I feel like I defer to you. I defer to you. What a day.
Starting point is 00:00:33 What a day. I just saw 2.3 billion in volume. It was only 10 a.m. Astounding. I guess anyone who is worried about interest has got very little to worry about at this point. Yeah, I think Matthew, we've got Matthew, we've got Matt coming here. Ryan is here as well.
Starting point is 00:00:52 Initial thoughts, guys. Obviously, the market is pumping, not surprisingly. Bitcoin actually kind of wobbly, if you're watching. It went up to 49 and then pretty quickly, within know, within 30 minutes dropped to 47.5. It's at 47.7 now. Still great. You know, extreme volatility. I had no idea it went up all the way to 49.
Starting point is 00:01:15 Why do you think it dropped so quickly? What's the... I don't have any theories. I think we're just going to see a whole lot of volatility with this much interest and uh i'm interested in digging in with the panel on what the dynamic is for you know what happens with the actual etf trading and how that affects the underlying spot market before going to the etf discussion i do want to just get a quick update on the market and wick is here to to kind of give us a overview with you as well, Scott. Wick, your thoughts on Bitcoin's price? Actually, I'm looking at it now.
Starting point is 00:01:47 It went all the way up to, yeah, exactly. It hit 49 for a couple of minutes and then went all the way up. Now it's at 47.6, while the rest of the market is pumping pretty hard. Your thoughts on this week? Hey, fellas. Yeah, no, my thoughts on it is that it went up to 49 i mean it's a great day it's pumping i don't think we should focus on any little pullbacks i don't think the story is it went from 49 to 47 i think the pullback i think the story is is that we're getting inflows and
Starting point is 00:02:16 i think everyone should be patient with this um you know this is probably gonna materialize over the next uh two months and i think uh you know take a step back and just enjoy it for what it is. I wouldn't focus on any kind of pullbacks whatsoever right now. I mean, it's the first day, right? We expect it to be volatile. So just the fact that it went up to 49 to me, it's my confirmation. And I'm being patient with this and I'm very happy. What a great day that we've all been waiting for.
Starting point is 00:02:42 Bitcoin to enter trade fires is huge. We're going to show them what's going on in the school market. Yeah, I was talking earlier this week, and I actually think Jacqueline and I were talking about this earlier, and a lot of people asked, is the ETF priced in? And my answer was always, you know, I think the risk of the ETF not launching is what's priced in by about 20%. And we should probably see 48 on the day. So I'm very excited that we've that we hit
Starting point is 00:03:13 49. But yeah, 48 is probably about the right level for a while. Yeah, I'm just having a look at the so what were the numbers of inflows, Scott, and maybe give us a quick overview on the performance we're going to matthew and all i saw so far and i don't have a terminal and i can't see uh it in real time but i saw that it was tweeted it was 2.3 billion in volume uh and that was around 10 10 a.m so obviously there's real interest in these products i think it's incredible by the way just a testament to this show show and the quality of the guests. I mean, we have VanEck, Bitwise, Valkyrie, all you guys on the stage right now with us. Three of the 11 that are going live, you guys are here.
Starting point is 00:03:56 I just had actually my first conversation ever, just sort of worth mentioning. Matt, Ryan, obviously you guys with Bitwise. It was the first time I finally got Hunter on my show and it was 9 30 AM. I totally didn't process the fact that the ITB was launching for the first time. And he's sitting here, I'm asking him questions about the ETF and I can see him like looking at the phone and I hear you guys all cheering in the background. So I do get the hell out of here. You have a party to attend.
Starting point is 00:04:28 But I do think it's just incredible that we have access to all of you guys on a day-to-day basis to give us all of this insight. Because generally, none of us really know what's going on until we actually ask the experts. But it seems like maybe one of you can jump in. But it seems like maybe Matt Siegel, you're always really good with the quick data.
Starting point is 00:04:48 I mean, it seems like we're seeing a lot of interest here in the first hour. I mean, obviously there was some pre-market trading, but that there's real interest here. Yeah, I mean, my spreadsheet shows north of a billion dollars in volume. I'm not sure where the $2 billion comes from. It was coming from DB. I can share the tweet. It was originally a billion.
Starting point is 00:05:12 And 150 bps in terms of the spread, the bid ask spread to buy them. So that's a little bit high. I would expect those to come down. There were a couple of late openings on the exchange. I think that may be what drove up the Bitcoin price with some of those orders not being able to execute. Grayscale, iShares, it's BlackRock, and Fidelity, although there's plenty of us doing some volume here. Most of these products are also trading at between like a 1% and 3% premium to NAV. We would expect those also to come down as the market makers sort their liquidity arrangements. I think that's what's driving up the BTC price is that the demand has essentially overwhelmed a handful of these ETFs they're trading at premiums to NAV. That'll drive the coin prices up. Matt, we've had a bit of confusion or actually looking for clarity. Interestingly, even in my other chats, people who are actively in this are asking what the
Starting point is 00:06:29 mechanics are here. So as we see this increase in volume in the ETFs, what are the mechanics for market makers or for them to actually fill these orders? I know Tom Lee tweeted that they would have to go directly to exchanges and buy it in real time. But I've got to imagine there's quite a bit of hedging and other strategies. So how much, you know, as the volume increases here, what does that mean for the spot Bitcoin market, I think is what I'm getting at. Yeah, so there's two types of institutional participants helping with liquidity here. The first are the authorized participants who make markets in the shares of the ETF. And then those authorized participants have to get the Bitcoin
Starting point is 00:07:12 from liquidity providers. The liquidity providers are often just affiliates of the authorized participant. So same parent company, but a different affiliate. Those affiliates are presumably hedging the demand that they anticipate in the futures market, but they can't do it perfectly. And I think that's why we've got these little premiums here to deal with this morning. Yeah, there was an article a day or two ago, I can't remember who it was, but saying that they could expect as much as an 8% premium. Matt, weren't we talking about that live? And then they revised it while we were watching to 0.08%. That's right. Exactly. So it looks like it's shake out right in the middle. Sorry. Go ahead, Matt. No, you go ahead.
Starting point is 00:08:04 Okay. You know, we thought 8% was outrageous and that wouldn't be the case. You know, it turns out Reggie misspoke. And I think we're going to settle back down closer to the 8 bips, although currently around 2%. I mean, 8 bips is nothing, right? That's an exceptionally small premium. I think after Reggie spoke, he changed that. I thought it would be closer to about two, two and a half
Starting point is 00:08:29 is what I was saying this week. I don't think it's going to stay there for very long. Where there's arbitrage opportunity, people are going to make markets. Also, you just have to look at when a lot of these orders are due from authorized participants.
Starting point is 00:08:46 So you really should start seeing things shaking out and getting closer to NAV, really probably by noon Eastern. And Steve, did I see literally just in passing that Valkyrie just reduced the fee once again and did a waiver? We did. Did a little fee and waiver. I'd like to thank Matt Hogan for driving the fee worse. Come on, Steve. We're in it for the people. That's right.
Starting point is 00:09:20 Maybe you should be thanking Gary Gensler, right? If he had approved these products from the beginning, there'd probably be one guy trading at 1%. Exactly. And out of all seriousness, you know, Matt, both, you know, Matthew and Matt are both on the line. Congratulations to both VanEck and Bitwise, our friendly competitors out there. And, you know, we all, we all did this together and I also want to call out hashtags.
Starting point is 00:09:44 They're another group that are, that are what I call the good guys. And congratulations to them, them getting out and so many others that have been working on this. Can I assume the good guys Steve are the crypto natives and the bad guys of the evil empire? I mean, I would just build on that. There's a reason Valkyrie, VanEck, and Bitwise are on
Starting point is 00:10:10 this call, and some of the others aren't. This is the heart of crypto. This is the real crypto. And those are three firms that have been building and care about this space, which I think matters. So I'm really excited to be here. I talked to Hunter briefly about this morning,
Starting point is 00:10:26 but I absolutely love the 10% profit going to Bitcoin Core. I think that's just a huge, really, really impactful move from you guys. Yeah, appreciate that. We're excited to do that and excited that VanEck is doing that as well. I think it's important that ETFs contribute to the Bitcoin ecosystem. So that's a big part of it. And it's wonderful to see that there is real and significant demand for these ETFs. So it's a great day for Bitcoin all around. Awesome. One more question. We're talking about expectations and whether we'll be able to
Starting point is 00:11:01 meet expectations. Day one, how does that compare to what you guys expected? Love to get your thoughts, Stephen, Matt, and Matthew. Well, maybe I'll go first here, but I've been saying $2 billion to $4 billion in total new. I kind of thought it'd be more like $2 billion new assets day one and probably another two that rotate out of other things, whether it's futures or GBTC or some other type of vehicle that already has Bitcoin. So we'll see what the day looks like. That's still probably reasonable for the first two days of trading. And I think after the halving is when we really start seeing the inflows, though. I think it's not going to be – it's not just this giant dam that day one inflows was Bidto, which was Bitcoin Futures two years ago.
Starting point is 00:12:11 And even at Valkyrie, three days later, we launched the second one. And it was the 14th largest ETF open, which is insane given that it was second to market. I think collectively, we're going to pass those numbers. I mean, we're going to dwarf that number. But I don't know yet if we're going to see a single ETF out of the 10 or 11 that's going to pass the previous record. But collectively, you have to look at that. And it is sort of a dam breaking, but the real dam is breaking later this year after the halving, after people have evaluated these products and financial advisors have given it some time, evaluated the managers, evaluated the track record
Starting point is 00:12:51 and passed their committees. So by the end of the year, we're probably somewhere in the $25 billion range. I would love to get Matt and Matthew. Ryan, I was just asking Stephen, Matt and Matthew their thoughts on the performance today versus expectations. And we'll give you the mic right after. I just want to get Matthew and Matt's thoughts quick. Matt? Yeah, I would say I agree with everything that Steve said.
Starting point is 00:13:14 I think it's a little bit better than expectations. This is a really warm reception. It's not like the futures ETFs, which landed with a bit of a thud. This is, as Steve said, probably the biggest ETF launch in history, which makes sense for the most important new financial asset in a century. So I'm really excited about it. I would add that I think the dam is breaking pretty quick. I heard today of a major independent RIA platform that's putting these ETFs on tomorrow morning. So that's a pretty quick response from these platforms, which tend to be pretty slow moving. So I'd say that this is
Starting point is 00:13:52 exceeding expectations. And just one note on how to interpret the data, flows come in at the end of the day. So what we're looking at here is volume. Most of this volume is on the buy side. That's why these ETFs are trading at a premium. As long as they continue to trade at a premium, you can assume there's a pretty good correlation between the volume you see and the flows we'll see at the end of the day. It'll be not all of the volume, but a lot of it. So this is, I would say, probably better than expectations and a really strong open. And the response I'm hearing from platforms suggest they're going to be responsive to this and opening up the spigots quickly.
Starting point is 00:14:31 And I think that means it's going to continue to be good news for, for weeks and months. Yeah. Great color, Matt. I agree. Slightly better than expectations. My monitor is now at 1.5 billion in volume across the 11 products. These NAV premiums are still kind of sticky, most above 2%, but we will need the day-end flows numbers. I agree with Steve here that the passive flows that folks are expecting from institutions, those will come likely in the second half of the year after the wire houses have put out their asset allocation models.
Starting point is 00:15:11 I can't wait to see these new 60, 40 models turn into, you know, 60, 38, 2. And then advisors will be able to start putting these products in discretionary accounts post-having, that's when the, hopefully the fireworks will come. Uh, Matt, is there, do you have any color on how the volume would translate to flows at the end of the day? Like, is there a correlation there or is it really impossible to tell until the end of the day? Uh, well right now the, the Grayscale product is about 30% of the value traded across the 11 products. You have to assume that all of that is sales. Most are all of it. So maybe we're two to one buy to sell.
Starting point is 00:15:59 That would mean a billion dollars here in the first hour. That's impressive. that's impressive that's impressive uh no no i don't ryan was just jumping in i'm writing some some quotes from what steven just said to post it up i may have missed this but where do we get the most accurate numbers of inflows what What's the source here? Matthew's been giving them to us. And where do we, if we want to track this, what's the most reliable way to track this? I think you'll see.
Starting point is 00:16:41 I hate giving a plug to a walled garden data provider, but Bloomberg is my right hand on this. And therefore, folks should follow Eric and James from Bloomberg. I'm sure they're going to have these numbers pretty quick. That's right. It's worth noting that flows can take a day or two to show up. So don't overread into the day one flows. But I would agree that Eric and James are probably the place to look at the end of the day to see where we netted out. That's good because Eric and James definitely need something to do now after the last few months of keeping us oppressed of what was happening with the launch. We definitely now need them to be our data providers. God,
Starting point is 00:17:16 those guys unbelievable. Go ahead, Rand. Sorry. Yeah. What do we need to beat the world? Like to be the most traded slash bought ETF on day one? What's the benchmark? What are we up against? I think it's $1.2 billion. So it seems like we've killed that. But that's not, you mean in inflows, not volume, correct?
Starting point is 00:17:44 That was my point in that. Yeah. That was my point is how do we get the ratio? You know, can we extrapolate anything from the volume we're seeing to actually inflows, which is what Matthew was kind of answering. So we still have, I think some way, a little ways to go for that. And as they said, maybe not into a single product. Yeah. Well, what's exactly, what's the. You're making an assumption that the only sales are
Starting point is 00:18:05 gbtc because the rest would have to be biased because who would you be buying it from because these are pretty new shares right the only one that actually has uh historical is gbtc so maybe if you just remove the gbtc you can get to a much closer ballpark i would have to go to matthew or some steven for for color on that yeah yeah this is a difficult situation you have um a a brand new asset class or a brand new asset brand new etf that's trading uh and this one you've got you know 11 going together, one that already has assets where there's expectations of flows out. So it's nearly impossible to extrapolate what the net is going to be. And you don't know that. I mean, we're only making assumptions.
Starting point is 00:18:56 We don't know that all from the total volume and then apply some multiple different ETF launches Why would anybody buy GBTC when the rates are seven times bitwise? I mean just to play devil's advocate
Starting point is 00:19:20 like GBTC the GBTC premium at this point looks like it's less than the ARK premium. So, you know, you may have some fast money who's trying to eke out a few bits, arbing these between themselves. I don't think that's going to be, you know, a huge strategy for alpha going forward. But amidst all of this volatility in the opening hours, maybe there's some there. Yeah, I would just add,
Starting point is 00:19:48 I think money is going to rotate into the low fee ETFs, particularly tax advantaged money, and it's going to happen quickly. So it is hard to tease out the exact number. I agree that roughly subtracting GBTC and looking at some percentage of the rest, but this is going to be a big number. I suspect it's going to be a record collectively i think we're gonna we're gonna get there okay so record matt record what so i'm just i was writing what you and steven and matthew were saying just putting it out as a quote
Starting point is 00:20:15 and i've just posted it out um so i i might have missed a few things so the volume uh scott can you give me the exact volume again for today? Because I think you and Matthew gave different numbers. I think we're way... Honestly, he's looking at it in real time. It was tweeted at 2.3 billion by DB or whatever, one of the sources, but that was 40 minutes ago. So, you know, completely irrelevant unless I'm seeing something new. Okay. So how do these volumes...
Starting point is 00:20:39 Matthew, if you don't mind me asking, how do these volumes compare to other successful ETF launches? Yeah, I mean, I'm not the expert to ask. I know that BITO, the Bitcoin Futures Fund, I think that was 1.2 billion. And that was a record in the organic inflows, the way that James and Eric look at it. It looks like, well, it's too early to say if we're going to beat that because the iShares volume advantage here, just as I keep refreshing my sheet, they launched early. When I say early, there was pre-market trading in IBIT. A couple of the other issuers were a little bit late to open at 930.
Starting point is 00:21:26 I think there was some kind of market maker confusion. And the iShares volume relative to the other players has come down a little bit. So I'm at now 500 million value traded for the iShares product. You know, maybe they don't beat that BITO number, but collectively, I think the group will. Collectively, it's going to smash it. Yeah. So you're talking about one technically beating it, but no point in history have we ever had these products.
Starting point is 00:21:59 So, so is it fair to say Matt and Steven, and then we'll go to the rest of the panel, Jackson and everyone else, but sorry to really press on this because I think we've been talking for days on, all right, we know the ETF is going to be approved. But now what we need to look out for is what inflows and the volume that we see and whether there is institutional interest. And we are starting to see those numbers come in. So, Stephen, is it fair to say that it's beating expectations, which you already mentioned, and this is the most successful ETF launch ever. Wait, I don't want to interrupt, but really quickly. Okay, go ahead.
Starting point is 00:22:34 I was just going to say, this is from a Baltunis tweet, and this was 20 minutes into trading, just to give you guys some color. It said, only 20 minutes into trading, the volume is big with half a billion traded for the group, excluding GBTC, outpacing BITO by a lot, outpacing BITO by a lot, led by IBIT, which is near locked to pass a billion. So that, it looks like IBIT will likely set the record itself,
Starting point is 00:23:00 even without the others, according to this. And a half a billion without GBTC, it was smashing the Bitto pace. So just to give some context there. Go ahead, Steve. Yeah, look, I think expectations are actually all over the place. You know, our thought was somewhere between 3 to 4x what Bitto was across the board. I think some people thought that, okay, this is a sales and news event.
Starting point is 00:23:29 It's not going to be that big. And by the way, I thought that was a strong possibility as well, given that the dam kind of burst on Bitcoin futures. Is there another dam to break here? And sure enough, there is. But going forward, I think the real story is going to be what the next year looks like. And it's going to be a slow run. I mean, I've launched entire ETF mutual fund businesses before under big name. And it took two to three years for financial advisors to actually get behind it and start saying, OK, you've got a two-year track record. You have a three-year track record. Now we can start getting behind you.
Starting point is 00:24:04 I think that's where the real story is. Whereas in futures, it came out of the gate really hot, but didn't really gather a whole lot of assets beyond that, where I believe spot is going to continue to gain steam over the next two to three years. Yeah, Steve, we were just kind of hinted at this before, but the impression, I think, from the Bitcoin futures ETF and that Biddle launch, but it really was like grassroots and a ton of retail buying. Right. And so that obviously that's really compelling initially. But you're talking about sort of sustainably with institutions. That's a very different conversation. Yeah, that's right. And and i'm gonna hop guys uh i i look i really
Starting point is 00:24:46 appreciate you all uh leah's leah's here i'm sure she'll jump up and start talking as well awesome perfect i wanted to hear from jack and jack and uh good to have you back on stage hey yeah thanks for having me i was listening into what everyone was saying and obviously off the bat there's inflows around like 1.5 billion or so, at least that's what I'm seeing, too, which is obviously great for all the issuers day one. But for Matt and Matthew, if you could answer this for Bitwise and VanEck, and if you could get Leah up here for Valkyrie, I'm curious, how do you plan on keeping momentum alive beyond the hype that's built up today and like what you'll do in the coming weeks to make sure like your fund is one of the top performing ones
Starting point is 00:25:28 sure well a question go ahead matt go ahead matt uh yeah i mean the answer for for bitwise and i'm sure for other people is we have a significant distribution team we have 20 people out having conversations with financial advisors every single day. We have people talking to national account platforms to get approvals on those platforms. And we have a very simple message, which is the lowest cost ETF from a crypto specialist. And I think that will resonate. But it does speak to what's going to happen here. It's not just Bitwise with its 20 people plus our seven-person research team putting out content. It's VanEck doing it. It's Valkyrie doing it.
Starting point is 00:26:08 And it's BlackRock and others doing it. You're going to have people having all of those conversations. So that's how Bitwise intends to win. It's how we built our business over the last seven years. And we're just doubling down with a little more hustle and now this incredible low-cost ETF in the arsenal. But that's our plan. Yeah, Matt, Hunter blew my mind this morning when he said that you guys,
Starting point is 00:26:31 and I guess, I don't know, the timeline last year or two had had 20,000 calls with investment advisors and institutions. That is right. As well as so many lunches at Capitol grills that i i never have to eat another salmon again i'll be all right uh yeah we are out there pounding the pavement uh calling advisors meeting with advisors meeting with national account platforms every single day and we've been doing it for years and we're going to accelerate that now
Starting point is 00:27:01 yeah i just think considering, you know, 11 companies doing that, how many of these conversations are happening behind the scenes, that's got to be so much more impactful than the amazing commercials and such. We got Lee's up on stage as well, Scott. Yeah, I know. Hi, Leah. We haven't spoken in a while. I know.
Starting point is 00:27:22 Oh, thanks. Well, congrats to you. Congrats to everybody here. Matt, congrats. You know, but again, great day for Bitcoin. So everybody in this community, everybody on this call, I mean, it's an exciting day. And, you know, we all got here. To answer that question, similar to Matt, we've been having conversations with RIAs for years now. And, you know, Matt, I appreciate the salmon. I think we've had more, you know, Nashville hot chicken here. I think I probably would have done
Starting point is 00:27:50 health at a Capitol Grill, you know, gain some weight on that one. But no, but exactly the same. And for us, you know, this vehicle, this product's underlying spot was always the desire. So, you know, Stephen spoke earlier, what are we going to see over the next year and years? I agree with him. I think that it's going to continue to trickle. I think through education, as you mentioned, Matt, you know, none of us are stopping. We're only going harder at it, right? And now we have BlackRock and Fidelity more in the game and Franklin Templeton and Global X and everybody and more to come, right? And all the institutional players that kind of backed away from their infrastructure
Starting point is 00:28:30 plays, whether it was Boney on custody, I can imagine that they'll come back in once they feel more comfortable. So that's all just great activity. I think, you know, tides rise all boats. But so I think that that's really good for Valkyrie though, as well. What's been interesting for us is being kind of enmeshed in the protocol ecosystem as well. And even speaking to other communities, what's been interesting is, you know, the retail public is even though we, you know, not your keys, not your coin, you know, I'll be the first one to talk about that. And one of the first one to talk about that and one of the first people to definitely love talking about spot. But all those individuals have always been interested in
Starting point is 00:29:11 the vehicle of an ETF for their 401k, for their IRAs, for the places that it's meaningful. So the retail growth can't be underestimated. We've seen that, you know, time and again, I'll always think about AMC and what kind of army can be mobilized. But yeah, I think we're going to see, we're going to see demands from all different sides because all the issuers in the game have different communities, different backers, different focus, different target markets and different evangelists behind different, you know, our different brands. So, yeah, excited to see it. Ryan, did you have a thought on that? I saw you had your hand up.
Starting point is 00:29:56 Oh, yeah. I was kind of speaking, planning to say something closer to the comparison. It's just me or I cannot hear Ryan. No, no, we can hear us. It's just you scott don't drop though i'll drop i'll drop ryan and bring him back up when he's done go ahead right actually right i'm gonna go to zach and i'll go back to you right after just i'm gonna drop you and bring you back up right just go talking to you zach go ahead thanks all right yeah for sure i just
Starting point is 00:30:19 you know really momentous day this is pretty awesome i just think one of the groups we should really think about here in the role they played is Grayscale, which, you know, put their money where their mouth is, and they actually fought this battle. They took the SEC to court. If anyone read Gary Gensler's very whiny statement yesterday, you know that they were dragged into this. They didn't want to approve a spot at the Quinn ETF, and they were cornered by the DC Circuit's opinion. And I think that that is a really important lesson to learn going forward. I think that is definitely a lesson that these asset managers have learned that they're going to apply in the case of ETH. I'm interested to see how that
Starting point is 00:30:54 battle plays out. But you know, look, I think the SEC has shown they really do not, they just don't like the crypto industry and the gains we're going to get, we're going to have to fight for. And that's an important lesson of this ETF launch. Ryan? Yeah. Can you guys hear me now? Yes, yes. I hear you, man. Awesome. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. I think that this is just, you know, a very early step in the long battle that we have for broader adoption of crypto, especially approval for other spot ETFs from the SEC.
Starting point is 00:31:27 I mean, to talk to the comparison of Bitcoin futures to spot Bitcoin ETFs, I think, you know, in one realm, it's fair to compare them just given the record setting launch that Biddo had as a futures-based ETF. But I really think that over the long run, like spot Bitcoin ETFs are way better positioned for adoption. I mean, a lot of traditional investors aren't comfortable investing in futures. A lot of the platforms or RAs that people have been talking about as the space has been going on won't invest in futures because they're a little bit more complicated. They're not as efficient. They have worse tax implications and they have higher costs associated with rolling from each futures contracts whenever they roll and rebalance. And so spot ETFs are just much simpler and more cost effective, more tax efficient.
Starting point is 00:32:17 So I think day one, day two, certainly interesting to look at volume and I can't wait to see how the flows shake out at the end of the day today. I think it's going to be a really exciting, really exciting moment, but I'm, I'm more excited for a year from now how much spot to see how, how much spot Bitcoin ETFs have grown and what that does for the overall adoption and the price of Bitcoin. I mean, every dollar coming into the spot, ETFs is going out and buying a dollar of Bitcoin on the open market.
Starting point is 00:32:45 And that's just never, frankly, never happened before in the life of Bitcoin at this scale and at this level. And with all these teams marching towards building these products out and dialing for dollars that are going straight into Bitcoin, it's a crazy, exciting time. And it's a once in an asset class type event and uh like crypto's kind of moon landing moment here and so excited to see where things land in a year from now and you know maybe by then we'll have more spot etfs on other crypto assets who knows yeah it happens to the futures i just want to know mario what happens to the bitos and the futures etfs uh that have already been trading?
Starting point is 00:33:31 For all those reasons that you just named, shouldn't we, through time, see basically outflows there into the spot ETFs? Yeah, I would expect that. I would expect people who have been getting exposure to the futures-based ETFs to, over time, exit those positions and roll into spot Bitcoin ETFs. Just one thing, Scott. I'll give you the mic again just for the audience as well. I think, imagine I told you we'll have three ETFs celebrating the launch six months from now,
Starting point is 00:33:53 if we said that six months ago. You know, you probably would have called me crazy. Just for the audience, if you have any questions, we've got three ETF slides on stage. Put it in the comments in the bottom right corner
Starting point is 00:34:04 in a purple circle. I'm going to go through them as Scott runs the show and ask them those questions. But it's a pretty, as you said, Ron, it's a pretty historic day for crypto. I think we've talked about it so much and pretty much daily for the last few months. It still feels pretty surreal, to be honest. Carlo? Yeah, good morning. So first off, congratulations on an amazing show yesterday. I was supposed to be on the panel, missed that epic show because I was in the middle of closing arguments in a trial. But another amazing show today and a great panel. I have a question for the panel. This is an
Starting point is 00:34:41 amazing day for crypto, an amazing day for Bitcoin, and this is opening the door now to consumers being able to be onboarded in a much easier way. Question is, for the people running these funds, crypto runs 24-7. Aftermarket trading, is that going to be available for these ETFs? You mean like after hours trading or even market close? Yeah, I mean, you know, there's definitely going to be some some variance between what markets close at in traditional markets, New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq versus what happens to the price of spot Bitcoin overnight. And then you'll see that gap close likely upon open the following day. And so, yeah, it's one interesting element of these markets where crypto trades 24-7, 365 and baking holidays don't apply to crypto, but and weekends don't apply to crypto. And so I think that that's certainly one advantage is holding the asset directly itself, but ultimately you're holding the underlying asset or a claim on the underlying asset with an ETF.
Starting point is 00:35:48 And so the price will eventually close. I think that'll just be seen in a little bit of a fluctuation between the net asset value of the fund and the price of the fund around open. Amazing. Yeah, for anyone, Mark, Carlo. Yeah, Carlo, for anyone who hates the CME gap meme that we get every single weekend for crypto traders. Now we get it every single day, I guess, on 11 different ETFs. Now I've got a hot take for you, Scott. Let me jump in on that.
Starting point is 00:36:14 The ETFs will trade aftermarket and pre-market in that 30 minute to one hour window. They won't trade in the middle of the night. But I think one of the interesting possible changes that these ETFs may bring right now, the crypto market is most liquid around the European close. So, you know, 11 AM New York time with the emergence of all these spot products and the volumes that they're doing, it looks like the most active part of the day will probably shift to the New York close 4 p.m. Eastern. Thank you so much.
Starting point is 00:36:55 You're about to say something. Yeah, I got a hot take. It occurred to me this morning, and I know probably the panelists who are in these ETF funds may not want to touch this one, but we saw all the press releases yesterday on both sides from Hester and from the other committee members. And we know that this was a split decision, three to two. Wouldn't it be amazing? We don't know what the internal dialogue was during that vote, but wouldn't it be an incredible plot twist if Gary, who's been perceived by crypto as being the villain, actually ends up being the hero in this for casting the winning vote? I wouldn't say it's the hero i if i had to guess i would say that the legal department said you're gonna get sued out of your shoes buddy if you uh if you go the other way right so uh
Starting point is 00:37:36 it's more like a deadbeat dad more like a deadbeat dad forced to pay alimony in court that's exactly right 100 and if you read that better markets thing that was released just before the ETFs, when everyone knew the ETFs were going to get approved, I bet you that was done in coordination with Gary Gensler. And if you read his statement afterwards saying, listen, we're neutral on the assets, but then he shits all over Bitcoin.
Starting point is 00:37:58 I think this was a coordinated thing. The two people who dissented, I think dissented to give Gary Gensler cover for voting for the ETF, specifically because they knew they were going to get sued into oblivion if they denied it. This is not Gary Gensler being a good guy by any means. I literally slept better tonight. Yeah, Carlo, I slept well tonight knowing that he was sleeping in a pile of salty tears. There's no way that he was excited about this or happy. And I think as much as people are
Starting point is 00:38:28 saying he's the deciding or split vote, I think to their point, that was pre, it was predestined that he had to do it. So I mean, he even came out and said, Listen, I did this because of the courts. I did this because the grade scale decision, which I don't even agree with. Ron, go ahead. I know you probably have some color here. Yeah, I definitely have some color there as well. And you're 100% right. So he had to vote for it. They were having pressures from the courts. We were hearing it's either the 10th or the 8th. So it looks like that the 10th was the right date, it looks like. So he was definitely trying to use better markets as cover. I mean, we've seen that. It's pretty typical in D.C. You have these consumer groups, especially on the Democrat side, where they definitely use them to push out their talking points.
Starting point is 00:39:11 And a lot of the folks that the crypto folks are against, like Senator Warren and such, really use better markets and others, like Open Markets Institute, as well as Roosevelt Institute and a few others as cover. So, and I'm sure when the price, if when it does go down eventually, because it's, you know, it's a volatile asset, that's when they're going to try to, you know, beat the drum again. See, it's a volatile asset. People are getting harmed. We never should approve this. This is definitely, you know, Gunzler's fault here. So that was interesting to watch. Also, I just want to highlight too, the hack and everything that happened.
Starting point is 00:39:42 Like we still don't really know all the full details, but the most poetic way for them to go out. And I think at least in D.C., I was having a lot of texts from folks within the SEC, outside the SEC, in Congress. It's been a—it was pretty nuts. There's a lot of folks really within the SEC saying, like, this is a really bad look for us. We've really lost that narrative. You know, some folks are definitely in our camp supportive. There's other folks who are not, but very poetic way for this to all to end. And actually in D.C., we're actually feeling pretty good in terms of how this played out,
Starting point is 00:40:15 because if it was just a straight up approval, not as much. But the hack really makes him, you know, his heels are against the wall here. And Congress is definitely going to be using this to execute more oversight, which could get things more partisan, but they don't look good. Even the Democrats I'm talking to are saying like, this does not look good for the SEC. Hey guys, I got to hop, but I just want to say that on my spreadsheet, we just passed 2 billion in aggregate volumes across all these products. The graycale volumes are 850 million of it. So if you use all that as a proxy for sale, then we've become a bit more equally matched buys to sell. So
Starting point is 00:40:53 congrats on all the other issuers. Thanks for giving me the time and let's go Bitcoin. Scott, I'm also going to have to hop. Thank you guys. You guys have better things to do. It's crazy. Like what? I mean, not a big day or anything. No, no, no. Yeah. Boring for sure. No. Thanks so much for having me on everybody. Congrats on such an exciting day. Have a great time. Awesome. Thanks. Hey, Wick. I know you, you messaged me a question. It's something we talked about pretty much at length in the show, but, uh,
Starting point is 00:41:23 if you want to go ahead and ask, maybe, uh, maybe Ryan will be able to give you some color. I'm not sure. Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that I'm particularly excited about and expect this to affect the market is the rollout of the option chains. When are we going to get option chains on these ETFs that we can start playing around some more? And how do you guys think that'll affect the market? Ah, that's a good question. I actually don't know the answer to that. So I will maybe point to anyone else on the panel who might know. I really put you on the spot. But yesterday, the consensus was that it's going to take
Starting point is 00:42:04 a lot longer than people expect. I don't know if that's going to be the case or not or when, but apparently those products take borrow a particular meme. These are inflows and volumes for ants. And the reason why I say that is because this is the first day of trading, and there's an inverse first day of trading than what we actually think. Most of these products are not available at traditional brokerage firms right now. You can't go buy this at Merrill Lynch. Your typical boomer can't have a conversation with his financial advisor at Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley and go and grab this immediately. It takes time to move through the system. There's extra approvals inside of those organizations to make these things available for all kinds of different accounts, the inflows are going to exponentially increase over a curve of
Starting point is 00:43:15 time over the next three, six, nine, and 12 months. kind of flash wears off and you know all of us you know um challenged folks and and uh uh folks that have been here at seat on on crypto twitter for so long have have long moved on to you know the eth etf and and all kinds of other things that's where the volume of inflows will continue to spike higher and higher and higher and higher because it'll be easier to get at institutions that are massive, massive, massive, massive institutions of high net worth and ultra high net worth folks. Like for example, you know, a JP Morgan private client, a private bank client can't go and get it right now through their staff of advisors at the private bank at J.P. Morgan. At some point, they will. And those allocations of a guy that's got $800 million at J.P. Morgan private bank and needs to allocate 3% into a couple of Bitcoin ETFs,
Starting point is 00:44:24 he'll be able to do that in the next three to six months. He can't do that today. Right. So I retweeted a post from an advisor that's on Twitter that I like, Tyrone Ross. And it says, client email starting to trickle in on if we have an opinion on which ETF to buy, buckle up. That's where the rubber meets the road on this. That's where inflows over time, over an arc of time, will be like a parabola, right? Today is kind of the bottom of that parabola. It doesn't feel like it because it's such a big day and things like a billion and a half, two billion in flows, that's outstanding.
Starting point is 00:45:07 But over time, it's going to be so much bigger than that. So I just wanted to point that out, that we're literally at the beginning. This isn't the end of anything. This really is the beginning of the type of numbers that we've all thought that over time will be a part of the Bitcoin story, but it hasn't even gotten into the hands and be available to people that are doing business at J.P. Morgan Private Bank or Merrill Lynch's private bank.
Starting point is 00:45:44 Those types of places. It's not available to him yet. Scott, did you ask, before going to Ryan, did you ask, oh, Ryan's still here, perfect. Did you ask Ryan and the other guests about the ETH ETF and the likelihood of getting an ETH ETF? We haven't gotten there yet. We haven't gotten there yet.
Starting point is 00:46:02 But no, Ryan raised his hand to respond, I think, specifically to what Andrew was talking about. So let's wrap that and then we'll go on to you. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. ETHF conversation will be really exciting. I was just going to circle back on the options question to start here because it's what we do at Bitwise.
Starting point is 00:46:18 We answer questions about crypto around traditional markets. But I spoke with Matt, actually matt actually matt hogan who was on but he had to drop and he said that it's it's really complex to launch options on the exchanges and thinks it could take at least months or even more than a year to have options change launched on these etfs um so you know i think it's unrealistic it'll happen in the short in the short term but a few months maybe a year until that happens and And on the Ryan, the question about the ETH ETF, your thoughts on that? Yeah, look, I think there's two change of thoughts to follow on the spot Ethereum ETFs. On the one hand, we've seen spot Bitcoin ETFs
Starting point is 00:46:58 now launch and those are preceded by futures-based ETFs. And obviously, Ethereum futures ETFs launched back in October of last year. So one train of thought would say, well, once you have futures ETFs, which is a CFTC-regulated market wrapped in an SEC regulated ETF wrapper, why would we not have the same for spot Ethereum ETFs? And I think that's a valid train of thought to follow. I mean, the markets have come a long way since both launching Bitcoin, launching 2009 took 14 years or 15 years or so for a spot ETF. I think Ethereum's time to market will be quicker. But on the other hand, you know, there's a bit of a different world that Bitcoin lives in than Ethereum. You know, there was very clear in Gary Gensler's written response or press release yesterday that the main driving factor in the vote to approve these ETFs by the commission was the grayscale lawsuit and the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals that they had wrongfully denied the GBTC conversion application and remanded them back to
Starting point is 00:48:08 re-reviewing it. And so that hasn't happened with the case of Ethereum. And so on the one hand, they look very similar if you were to look at the markets and the market structure of Bitcoin and Ethereum. That's why Ethereum futures ETFs were ultimately approved is because the market structure of Bitcoin and Ethereum, especially from a futures perspective, looks very similar. But on the other hand, you don't have this ruling in the US Court of Appeals that's telling the commission that they need to go back and they need to look at Ethereum and, and re review applications. There's no, you know, so I think there's a a i would honestly give it a 50 50
Starting point is 00:48:45 probability that we see in this year it's it's not nearly as high as the likelihood that we would see spot bitcoin etfs coming into this year that we'd see a spot if you're m etfs and obviously i'm i'm that's not bad yeah that's not actually 50 50 is not bad it's better than i expected but do you think the statement that genzler made let me try to find it pin it above it's a pretty long statement um but do you think he's kind of referencing, indirectly referencing the excitement behind the or the narrative behind ETH and saying, look, guys, cool down. This is an exception and don't expect anything else from our end? Yeah, I do. I think reading the tea leaves, that's how I interpreted it. There is no way that Gary
Starting point is 00:49:26 willfully gets behind an Ethereum spot ETF. Zero chance. 0.0 is zero. You saw two commissioners vote against the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF. So it's not like there's unanimous agreement here across the commission, right? It was a three to two vote,
Starting point is 00:49:42 which is great that it was approved right and and gary genzo's hand was was certainly pushed when it comes to that but uh but yeah you know it's not as if we had unanimous decision across the commission for these for the spot bitcoin etf so it's hard to to see a world or envision a world where in three months or six months, there's at least three of the, of the commission members to that would vote in favor of spot at the RMTKFs. The timing is, is an interesting conversation. I don't think anybody has a real bead on the timing. If there's a way that I could, as a response, just post Larry Fink's face again inside of this conversation, I probably would. I do have contacts at the SEC.
Starting point is 00:50:31 And the bottom line is, they've said the ETH ETF will almost, you know, in lockstep, follow the process by which the spot Bitcoin ETF was approved. So seven or eight months? Yes, so probably in a long-gated time period. What process, if it's the grayscale rulings, what force they hand when it comes to the Bitcoin ETF, if you read Degensler's statement? Yeah, that has been discussed, that there's a conversation by which does the SEC want to go that route again and lose again because they will lose again.
Starting point is 00:51:07 Right. So there will the process will follow kind of the spot Bitcoin ETF process. And by the way, you know, it's not like Gary Gensler found his way and really got behind the spot Bitcoin ETF. He was forced into that position. So the conversation basically is it will follow that same kind of road. And it wouldn't surprise if at some point, you know, Grayscale kind of leads the way again, from a legal standpoint. You can imagine that those conversations, some of those conversations have been had between Grace Gale and the SEC and probably others. Reason being is those lawyers, those representatives on both sides spent a lot of time with each other over the last 30 days,
Starting point is 00:51:58 right? So who's to say in the hallways off the record, some of these things aren't. I mean, of course, they're being discussed. But, you know, regulatory. I'm having major regret. Andrew, I'm having major regret right now for not taking the most obvious trade of following that is a former SEC employee and is, let's just call it partnered with a current SEC employee that I follow, sometimes retweet. I'll just leave it at that. They've been talking about the the gray scale um this person calls it the ponzi trusts um made a lot of money off of them because they knew what was coming right yeah it's in a minus 11 discount right now but you know that was trading and uh you know
Starting point is 00:53:01 this summer i'm looking 53 i think i, even a bigger discount than GBTC. So if you had any belief that ETH would follow, that was as obvious as the GBTC trade, which was laying out that roadmap. Right. So the roadmap and the pathway here, again, I've been told is very similar to spot Bitcoin ETFs. Time frame, time frame,, maybe even more elongated. I don't know. The wheels of courts and regulatory bodies move very, very slowly as folks that are involved in the ETF firms or even on this space know. But there is a pathway and you can't, I don't know, 576 to one. You know, do you think that guy's in it to lose the second? Yeah, I literally tweeted that earlier. They went from 575 to one to 576 and one.
Starting point is 00:53:57 This would mean 576 and two or 577 one. Place your bets. It's just a matter of timeline, as you said. Right. Like I've been saying that for months that there were even you know you know bitcoin people on these spaces a couple months ago saying uh etf is going to get denied or delayed again and i'm like guys no it's not uh it's just that that's not what it's not what that organization does sorry um same thing here uh period of time but you know if you're if you're gonna make a bet um
Starting point is 00:54:27 that uh eth isn't isn't a bad spot to make a bet yeah um i have a question before going to the hands just a more personal question to ryan ryan uh first again congratulations for the millionth time has been a crazy journey for you guys a bit wise and obviously I wish I could ask that question to Matthew, Matt and Jason earlier but the question that I have that I'm curious about, what would you say was your lowest point on this
Starting point is 00:54:56 journey? I'm curious what went through your mind back then because I want to compare it to now and everyone's going to forget, slowly going gonna forget slowly he's gonna forget the times we went through over the last year and a half um so i'm curious to know what your lowest point was oh man mario that's such that's such a good question uh it's been a really wild ride i mean it's it's certainly been the craziest period of my life and uh i so many people who've worked
Starting point is 00:55:22 in crypto for a while now we'll talk about how you one year crypto feels like 10 years. I mean, we are only what, 14 months beyond the FTX collapse, which feels like a decade ago, in some respects, but, but certainly, you know, still a little bit traumatized from that. I would say my actual lowest point was probably Q1 of 2023. The FTX stuff was certainly a blow and was certainly hard to see happen because so many individual investors were wiped out. I mean, when financial crimes like these happen, I think a lot of people just kind of shrug off the impact that financial crimes have because it gets so caught up in the headlines. But these are individuals. These are these are parents who lost their child's college funds. These are family marriages that are ending because somebody lost their their life savings on FTX. And these are careers that in some cases were ruined, employees fired. So it's such a huge blow to individuals. And so many individuals were hurt by the FTX scandal and the billions that were
Starting point is 00:56:34 lost. And hopefully a lot of those will get them back in the claims court. But just to say that, I think that was a real low point. But ultimately, I think where I felt the lowest was when the SEC was suing Coinbase and Binance and Kraken earlier this year. I think that was a point where I was deep into the valley of despair and just wake up every day and you see negative headlines and the SEC suing more companies and more companies collapsing and prices continuing to stay down in the $20,000 range and low $20,000 range really had some moments in the Valley of Despair. But we emerged, I think like June, July began to emerge from that. And it's a complete opposite feeling now. And that just speaks to the crazy roller coaster that is crypto. And I really agree with what I see on Twitter across the past 48 hours is, you know, once you work in crypto, I don't know how, how you, you leave it. Like, I can't
Starting point is 00:57:35 even imagine working at my old job at a traditional asset manager that had nothing to do with crypto. You know, now having spent time in, in crypto with the memes, with the culture, with the chaos. But the lowest point was certainly when the SEC and the government was coming after legit companies like Coinbase on the heels of the FTX collapse. Yeah, Ryan, someone asked me basically the same question and I gave the exact same answer. And I think people forget just how bad it was at that point. It's easy to whitewash it now. But first of all, it took Silicon Valley Bank collapsing for Bitcoin to go from 19 to 25 and sort of break that 20 area you were talking about. And then it really was when Larry Fink and BlackRock filed
Starting point is 00:58:23 for a spot ETF. And all of a sudden, we had Larry Fink on our side that came out of it. But when that was all happening, the SEC hadn't lost a ripple. The SEC hadn't lost a grayscale. At that point, people forget, but the SEC seemed like everything they said was law and was concrete. And now it's easy to look back and kind of be dismissive of it. But at the time that week, you mentioned where Coinbase got sued on Monday and Binance on Tuesday or whatever it was. I mean, it was just absolutely thought it was over. Yeah. Oh, man. The USDC de-pegging event was also probably one of the darkest moments.
Starting point is 00:58:59 I had a that that Friday was just so insane that friday night at just one point i just got up from my desk and walked over to the to the the kitchen and just poured like a water-sized glass of tequila and just just sat back down and just like stared at the screen and my phone and like what is happening right now like this is you know this is just uh unheard of and unexpected obviously and so yeah crazy crazy crazy time to be in crypto and to go through all of this, but a huge, a huge victory moment and time for, you know, time for a victory lap this week. I mean, there's a lot more work to do still. This is just the first crypto asset that is really going to be available to majority of the investment world.
Starting point is 00:59:41 And so really excited about that. But I really believe we're in the early innings here of crypto's life cycle. And 15 years isn't that long for an asset to be around. It's still a new asset class. And there's still so much education that has to happen. I was just on a call yesterday talking about how to value Bitcoin, what Ethereum is, how it works, what proof of stake is, what's different proof of stake, proof of work with talking to some RIAs. And so I think all of us that spend all of our time in it might feel like we've certainly been here for decades and have aged alongside this asset class, but it's still in its infancy. And
Starting point is 01:00:23 that keeps me fired up going forward. That's a far more pleasant conversation with those RIAs than explains them why it's not a scam and why all of us aren't SPF. So I'd say that's a positive turn in the tide. Danish, by the way, sent me a message. Scott, you won't believe it. And just for the audience, I'm actually curious to get your thoughts on your darkest moment as we celebrate uh bitcoin essentially because big to fail finally i think officially too big to fail uh with larry fink's approval but um uh scott danny sent me a message and i wasn't watching the chart he's like let me read out the exact way he's like do you know why bitcoin fell four percent he's definitely in the dark side because you know, why is BTC down 4% in the last hour?
Starting point is 01:01:07 I'm like, no clue. You really asked me. I love that he's, yeah, but now he's concerned. He wants the hourly price. I mean, he's one of us now. What's crazy is what you just, you know, all the reasons
Starting point is 01:01:19 that people became Bitcoiners, watching Danish in real time, people who don't know, Danish hosts the finance space in the morning. I used to go host it with him. It would have been hard to find someone more critical of Bitcoin. He's still exceptionally critical of crypto and NFT. And I just, I mean, a lot of us, but I just chipped away on a daily basis,
Starting point is 01:01:37 you know, trying to explain it to him. And he finally bought Bitcoin like a month or two ago. And it was because, A, I convinced him it was an idiosyncratic risk and that it was good to have in your portfolio, even if you hated it. My first attack usually is, I know you hate this thing, but here's why you should own it anyways. But then B, he really, it was when the Fed and Jerome Powell sort of came out and switched gears completely. And he thought the data was false and that there was just the united states government that he had so much faith and finally let him down and he bought bitcoin and so
Starting point is 01:02:10 i mean you know if someone like that can can come around and now he's worried about four percent volatility in an hour on the day of a spot launch and i have a lot of faith in all the people who've dismissed been dismisses of it in the past past. Yeah, it's funny how quick I lost you there, Mario. It's significant. It's just crazy how fast people shift their interest based on the price action. I bet he's in front of 17
Starting point is 01:02:40 screens right now. I bet he's like 17 screens, different time frames. So good. Hey, Scott, let's circle back on the ETH ETF for a second, if we could. Yeah, please, please. So I've been thinking about this and a couple of potential headwinds. Obviously, we know that Gary tipped his hand yesterday in that awful memo press release that he filed in response to the Bitcoin ETF approval. Two of the major headwinds I see is number one, the staking aspect of ETH. And number two, if he opens the door,
Starting point is 01:03:12 because he would clearly have to be the deciding vote again, if he opens the door to an ETH ETF, isn't he then opening the door to several other potential altcoins and layer ones also being ETFs? And is that just Gary's nightmare scenario? Is Gary Gensler around when you get to a point where you're voting on an ETH ETF? That situation is also worth considering. Yeah, I think that's the bigger, that's the real underlying conversation is just not under this administration or under this regime. Right. And so that inherently resets the timeline. Yeah, I think that inherently resets the timeline. But yes, I think that it's a can of worms that he would never want to open, which is
Starting point is 01:03:53 kind of why I said 0.0% chance that Gary would ever support an Ethereum ETF. And he's never even been able to say if it's a security or not. We know that he doesn't like it. Right. And he's always dodging. But yeah, I don't think we're going to see a Doge ETF under the Biden administration and against the regime anytime soon. Because yes, it's a very slippery slope, I think, for the SEC, which is why I think a lot of us have always been sort of under the impression that he'll,
Starting point is 01:04:21 which he didn't. I actually thought he would take a bit of a victory lap on the Bitcoin spot ETF. I didn't think that he would really admit that it was a result of the courts. I thought he would, I've said this a million times, I thought he would kind of come out and say, hey, you know, we rejected this for years, we want to wait until we knew that it wasn't being manipulated. And we had, you know, a market of significant size, and we had trusted Wall Street institutions to do this. and but he didn't he just uh but this is this isn't like ryan was talking about it earlier um and probably articulated better than i but this is exactly what i was talking about earlier he he's he's kind of making sure that our expectations towards an ectf um it don't spike up because of this decision
Starting point is 01:05:02 um and ryan agreed with that That's how I see it. Because, yeah, I would have otherwise him celebrating the success they've had, quote-unquote success, would have been a better statement. I think the only way that it happens is if we see similar legal pressure like we did with the Grayscale decision.
Starting point is 01:05:22 He's completely forced into it. How could that happen? Where would that legal pressure come from, Scott? Carlo's a lawyer, but I would think if, you know, if for some reason we start to see sort of passive rejections or denials or delays in those, because obviously there's a clock on those, right? The same way that we sort of saw the timeline with the Bitcoin ones.
Starting point is 01:05:42 Eventually there's going to come a time when they have to give a decision, right? There's going to be a time when they've delayed twice and they come to that point where they have to either approve or deny, I'm assuming. And at that point, if they deny and don't give grounds, I think we go back to arbitrary and capricious and lawsuits. But that's on a longer timeline. I could be wrong. I mean, Carlo, you're a lawyer, but that's on a longer timeline. I could be wrong. I mean, Carlo, you're a lawyer, but that's what I think. You know, not a securities lawyer, but I think they have a lot of discretion in this decision. I think the way that the lawsuits, especially the grayscale lawsuit, indirectly impacted the ETF decision was that it was a different issue, but it raised the concerns
Starting point is 01:06:24 that needed to be addressed, which is what cornered Gary. So it raised, it raised the, the, the concerns that needed to be addressed, which is what cornered Gary. So it would probably be again, some kind of a lawsuit that's not tangentially related to the ETH ETF, but that triggers another bad ruling for the SEC that again, corners them where they can't go against a precedent. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because basically the great, yeah. And what happened there, as you sort of pointed out, is that you just SEC just knew they would continue to get sued, and didn't really have a way forward, right. And so to avoid further legal action. But Mario, to me, I have no idea, but I'm not an expert. But I just, I think that's the only way that we see an Ethereum spot ETF. I just can't imagine him graciously stepping to the side and allowing it to go through the normal process. Brian? Brian, are you there?
Starting point is 01:07:15 Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Couldn't find the mute button. Yeah, I don't know. I think that that's why I would put it about a 50 50 uh probability that we would would see approval or rejection i think it's just i don't it's hard to see a world where without uh without the court's ruling in a certain way uh that that a spot spot a theorem etf um in favor of an issue of a spot etf against the sec sorry would would that, I don't see how we would get there in the short term. So that's, that's unfortunate. You'd also have to have some event like, like a rejection and then an appeal to trigger that, right.
Starting point is 01:07:55 It wouldn't just, there would, it would be wild to see an issuer somehow get to the courts with the SEC without that happening. So I think it's just, there's a longer road to these things. And spot Bitcoin ETF applications were first, first filed in 2013 and, you know, happened thereafter many, many times from many issuers. And, and it wasn't until Grayscale, you know, one in court that we, we saw the,
Starting point is 01:08:23 the approval come through following those events. And so, yeah, I don't think it'll happen as quickly, especially because Ethereum is a different beast than Bitcoin. You're talking about a different type of technology, a different type of asset that has different mechanics and the market structure is similar. Volume and open interest on CME futures for Ethereum look very similar to how they looked for Bitcoin if you were to kind of put their life cycle over that chart and where they're at in their life cycle. And so from that perspective, I think that the argument is hard to make for rejecting
Starting point is 01:08:58 spot Ethereum ETFs once those application deadlines come to the forefront. But there's other arguments that could be made, right? There's a question around centralization. There's a whole analysis of proof of stake versus proof of work and what that means. And then stable coins and DeFi applications trade and NFTs trading on top of this platform. I'm not sure how the government would view that versus a more straightforward asset like Bitcoin, which is more simpler to understand.
Starting point is 01:09:34 Imagine an Ethereum spot ETF where you also get the staking rewards. That would be fun. Oh, man. Ron. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I think that's far off in the distance.
Starting point is 01:09:47 Oh, I agree. I said imagine. I said imagine. I'm just saying that, in theory, you could have an interest-bearing ETF. Yeah, that would be a beautiful thing. I do think there's a distinction, yeah, that's worth making, Scott, definitely, that I would expect there to be spot Ethereum ETFs that don't have any staking associated with them. A hundred percent. There's no way that gets passed. We couldn't even get in kind for Bitcoin.
Starting point is 01:10:10 We're not getting staking on Ethereum, I would assume. Yeah. Go ahead, Ron. Yeah, I think, you know, I agree that I think that the ETF is going to happen anytime soon. I mean, Gensler needs to get backed into the corner again by the courts. But Congress does have like some levers here. Again, the hack is actually pretty important because he is losing the narrative really fast, especially on the Democrat side of the aisle. And so there's gonna be concern, too, that if the Biden administration wins again, would he get re-nominated? And, you know, these mounting court losses, the other attacks on, you know, the private equity side, ESG as well, is definitely pulling away votes for him. So he's going to have
Starting point is 01:10:49 a hard time and potentially facing a Republican Senate that he probably won't be able to get his nomination to go forward. So there's also something where he's looking to potentially survive. So that's one thing to keep in mind with the election coming up. Also, this entire year, Congress is going to try really hard to pass a market structure bill, and that's going to answer the questions about things like ETH, whether it's security or not. And so this conversation is going to be coming up a lot throughout the years. Do I see that bill moving this year?
Starting point is 01:11:15 It'll move a little bit in the House probably, but I don't see it getting signed to law, at least at this stage. It's going to probably be a 2025 play. But, you know, Gensler's got to think about, you know, his political survival here, too. And the litany of bad takes he's been having recently and the loss in the courts, especially, they're really starting to add up where even folks that if let's just say it stays a Democrat Senate, which most folks aren't saying that, but let's just say it is. If he hasn't come up for re-nomination, he doesn't have the votes, probably. And so he's got to think of a way either to shore that up
Starting point is 01:11:46 or to stop picking fights in certain industries. Or, you know, he can just plow through and then just hope the courts, you know, at least maybe go in his favor one way or another. But watch Congress because, like, this is going to be coming up a lot. And I know, like, you know, congressional letters don't seem to move the needle too much. But, you know, when your own party is starting to call you out more and more, that's when things get a little dicey for him. And so he's got to really kind
Starting point is 01:12:08 of think about that. And the race gets tighter, too. And, you know, things like crypto, you know, it's pretty low in the tier of like issues where people come to the polls for. But that's enough where the Biden folks say, hey, look, like it's a small cohort, but like it could jeopardize the Ohio Senate race. It could jeopardize Biden winning. They're going to tell the poll back. So I just kind of I keep an eye on Congress and the pressure that they can put on him knowing about 2025 and such. So keep an eye on that. Yeah, Mario, I think Mooch just had a statement today or yesterday, or he said it a few times, but it was in the news that he basically said that he thinks that Biden and the Biden administration's position towards crypto will lose them the election.
Starting point is 01:12:47 I love the idea. I don't think that's necessarily true. But Ron, I think if it's in the right places and the industry organizes in the right way and threatens those particular places where they really need the votes, it could become very politically unpopular to be in the anti-crypto army, so to speak. Yeah, what percentage of Americans own crypto now, Ron? Maybe, I'm not sure if anyone knows the number, and how does it compare to the last bull market? Just kind of put it into perspective, because if that number continues to rise as we enter the bull market, then it could have a bigger impact than we're making it out to be. Yeah, I think Coinbase has better numbers.
Starting point is 01:13:29 I've heard ranges from 25% to 40% of adults in the United States. So I'm not sure the exact specifics here. But, you know, one thing that's like kind of behind the scenes in D.C. that we're seeing, there's been a noticeable shift the past two months where a lot of folks were pretty confident that, you know, it would be Trump versus Biden. Biden was going to win. That sentiment's really changed within D.C. the past two months. There's not one instance that folks are pointing to, but the general sentiment is this race is going to get a lot tighter if it does go down in that, especially with Trump, you know, surviving a lot of these court decisions or moving up in the polls.
Starting point is 01:14:02 And so, you know, that's where the Biden administration is going to say, look, where are we starting to lose votes? Are we starting to be exposed here unnecessarily putting ourselves in a situation that jeopardizes our administration for next year? And that's been very – those conversations have started to happen in D.C. Again, not really related to crypto right now, but that's – they'll look for anywhere where they're losing votes or they're losing support. And especially this week, it just kind of shows that this man is very unpopular and it is making Joe Biden look bad.
Starting point is 01:14:32 Even though Joe Biden has no say in this whatsoever, he's really delegated all this authority to Gensler. And so it's been, it'll be interesting to see, but keep an eye on that. Those conversations have really started to happen in D.C. Does anyone else feel like both 25? I've heard the same numbers quoted, by the way, Ron, so I'm not saying you, but both those numbers sound exceptionally high. I would be shocked if 25% of American adults have exposure to crypto, especially after the washout of the last cycle. Maybe they have at some point touched it, but I very severely doubt I would put it at 10%. I would have thought would be aggressive before being pretty 10%.
Starting point is 01:15:10 But 10% I'm literally the most annoying person in every single room because of crypto. And there's no way even that 40% of the people I know own crypto. Bruce? Yeah, I agree. I don't think it's that high but it's it's certainly high unfortunately i don't think that bruce potential you're uh you can go ahead if you know excuse scott you can't hear him scott go ahead bruce the um i think that the uh you know the the crypto army doesn't have that much influence on elections unfortunately Unfortunately, it's a lot of talk. I mean, we're tough on Twitter, but in the real world with real elections, we just don't show up and don't support candidates and don't have the ability. I'm not so much criticizing.
Starting point is 01:15:53 It's just a newer industry that just doesn't have those well-developed deep pockets and PACs and everything else. So, you know, there's a lot of tough talkers and there's a lot of people who run PACs and there's a lot of people like, oh, we're going to win elections. We're going to do this in D.C dc but in reality almost none of them do anything meaningful and in fact many of them are actually counter to bitcoin you know there's a there's a pro i mean i always mention i mean all you need to know about the the politics thing is that the the person that i ran against in the Senate thing got $5 million from a pro-crypto
Starting point is 01:16:26 PAC, a pro-crypto PAC. And she has a 99% similar record to Elizabeth Warren. So she basically is a clone of Elizabeth Warren. So there's a lot of clueless PACs out there. But anyway, on the topic of the ETF, I think Ethereum hopefully is, Ethereum, you know, hopefully is inevitable at some point, but there's some other ones that might be easier. I mean, Litecoin and, you know, this talk about like whether Gensler likes it or not, that doesn't matter. You know, we are a nation of laws. And although these tyrants run over us, like, you know, we're a bunch of Chinese peasants getting our boots on the neck. We do have laws in this country and we do have a constitution and these tyrants do have to follow it. They can't just do what they want. And whether he likes ETFs or not doesn't really matter because he's got to follow the law and he's a public servant of us.
Starting point is 01:17:14 And the law is the law. And the law says that this Bitcoin ETF is legal. Therefore, things like Litecoin definitely are legal. Litecoin has the identical structure of Bitcoin. And there's no legal argument that I can think of that would make that difference. I mean, you could split hairs over the pre-mine or the staking of Ethereum, but you really can't do that with Litecoin. So if I was an ETF issuer, I'd try and issue a Litecoin one. Let me ask, and Bruce, I'm going to bring you down and back up because Scott didn't hear anything you said. Just a bit of a glitch. So I'll bring you back up now to accept the request.
Starting point is 01:17:50 Ryan, do you think we could see a Litecoin ETF prior to an Ethereum ETF just because it's a lot more similar to Bitcoin? You know, I see the argument for it and can understand the argument for it, right? Litecoin is a fork of Bitcoin with some parameters changed. And so from that perspective perspective it could be easier i i don't think so because i think that the the market structure uh underlying litecoin trading volume uh venues futures uh litecoin based futures etc isn't in the same place it is as ethereum or bitcoin was and then i i think the on the other hand um I hear a lot of conversation around people like when Dogecoin ETF or other things like that. And I think what's important to remember is that ETF issuers are doing this because they, you know, it's how they operate their business, right?
Starting point is 01:18:33 They charge fees on assets that they can inflow into the ETFs they launch. And unless there's significant interest or demand from clients or they foresee significant interest or demand for those products, you know, expending the resources and the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars it costs to to launch ETFs and to market ETFs just isn't isn't worth it for some of these assets that may not have as much interest as something like an Ethereum or or Bitcoin ETF. So I think, yeah, that's my thoughts on that. I've got some numbers here. Ryan just sent them to me. Ryan, do you want to read them out or would you like me to? Pretty astounding numbers. Oh yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. American adults who own that. So I'm not sure when that is. The source is, what's the source? Coinbase survey. Yeah, Ryan sent it to me. It's a Coinbase survey, right?
Starting point is 01:19:22 Coinbase. Okay, cool. So yeah, American... Go ahead, Ryan. Well, this was an advertising campaign actually that Coinbase ran. I think it was in Q4 of last year out in Capitol Hill during their policy week. And they launched this cold brew, this Coinbase cold brew that they called Wake Up Coinbase. And then instead of the nutrition facts in the back, they had a bunch of stats around crypto in America. So that's kind of the source for the data is Coinbase.
Starting point is 01:19:54 Yeah, just got, by the way, Bruce, just to light up your attacks on the current system. So the Biden administration just is backing now a bill to seize $300 billion in Russian assets to move into Ukraine. So that's another thing to tweet about and say custody custody on funds and other use case for bitcoin but uh just uh as we wrap up i've got the numbers here let me open it up again i got distracted by this news that just came in but american adults adults who own cryptos 20 percent and is ron still here ron's here american adults who own cryptos, 20%. Ron's still here. Yeah, Ron's here. American adults who own cryptos, 20%. Americans who want to update the financial system, 87%.
Starting point is 01:20:29 Should be higher. Jobs crypto is set to create by 2030 is 4 million. Fortune 500 companies that have crypto initiatives, pretty vague, but that's 52%. Fortune 100 companies considering a crypto competitive advantage, 64%. I'm not sure when that is, but I'm guessing it's relatively recent and we're not in the bull market. So I wouldn't be surprised Bruce, Ron, if
Starting point is 01:20:53 crypto starts as our friends said, if it starts having a bigger impact on voters and we start getting more one issue voters coming in and supporting Trump. I wonder how much of those 20% actually care about it
Starting point is 01:21:12 as a voting issue or how many of that 20% actually pay this. They hate us right now. Give it a few months and if we continue seeing a bull market, then they'll start loving us again. Exactly right. And the only thing that will drive that, by the way, sadly, is price. Exactly.
Starting point is 01:21:28 Prices go up dramatically and all of a sudden people are going to care deeply about this asset class, just like they did about the CryptoPunks. Yeah. I've read a couple of state-centered campaigns in Texas. I get it, you know, how voters react. And I think it's just right now, the economy and abortion and a few other issues are just so top heavy. It's hard to see, again, the crypto voter going to the polls with everything else that's on the line or to come to mind for, you know, the individual or family that they're with. But, you know, again, Coinbase is
Starting point is 01:22:01 doing something that no one else has really done. They've really tried to make this a campaign issue. And they're really focusing especially on Ohio right now because Ohio has Sherrod Brown, the lead Democrat, sent in banking. And right now, every single crypto bill that we've tried to get through Congress has to get his sign-off. And he has denied every single time even to work with the Republicans and even some of the House Democrats and Senate Democrats to get this moving forward. So he has been the main target for Coinbase's attack ads here on this. We'll see if it works. But then, you know, there's a double-edged sword. If it doesn't work, we have made a very, very strong enemy with the very powerful Senate-making chair.
Starting point is 01:22:41 Again, the Republicans likely will get the Senate back, it seems like, from everyone we're talking to, but there's a risk here. And so it's going to be really important for Coinbase to thread the needle here, because if we shoot and miss, we've created a really powerful enemy. And the thing that Congress, at least, will probably be on a standstill for another two years on crypto legislation. But sometimes's, but, you know, sometimes you gotta make a little risk to get some change. And that's what Coinbase's strategy is. He's already an enemy. I mean, it doesn't matter
Starting point is 01:23:12 because he's already an enemy. I mean, one of the problems is that we're, you know, tiptoeing around like these tyrants are in charge. We, you know, we're letting the lunatics run the asylum. This isn't how the world is supposed to work. It's not how America is supposed to work. We're not in some Ayn Rand novel where we all have to sit around wondering what the deputy undersecretary to the chief of staff of the exchequer of the keeper of the meetings cares about. We don't care about what these tyrants say. Let them be our
Starting point is 01:23:40 enemy. They work for us. They serve us. They serve the Constitution. They take an oath to the Constitution. Who cares if Sherrod Brown or Elizabeth Warren is mad at us? They're mad at us anyway. They hate us anyway. They're anti-freedom tyrants. We need to fight them and fight them hard at every single turn. And who cares if we make enemies out of them? They're already our enemies. So let's get back a little bit there. I'll push back a little bit there because, I mean, look, I mean, Sherrod Brown, again, by no means has he been helpful on legislation at the current moment. But there has been gaps we've seen that potentially could change. The thing I point to is that he's publicly said that Elizabeth Warren bill, he doesn't see a reason why to move that forward.
Starting point is 01:24:19 And again, that bill is just more of a talking point at this point. That bill is never going to go through the House with the Republicans in control. So, I mean, a lot of folks have been waving the red flag. This is the scariest thing out there. But at least for the folks internally here in D.C., it's like we've seen this as Sherry Brown has publicly said, I'm not convinced by this bill. So he has at least rebuffed a couple things here, but he hasn't done anything on the positive end, at least for the industry, when it comes to market structure legislation
Starting point is 01:24:47 or stable coins. And so I think the question is, how is that going to, you know, if you're just trying to do the math here and try to get something done in a split Congress, I mean, every bill is hard to pass these days. But he has been the main inhibitor of at least positive market structure legislation
Starting point is 01:25:02 moving forward. So that's going to be a very interesting play to watch for the next couple of years, sort of the next couple of months as the election really ramps up. And also, let's not forget, too, he has Bernie Marino likely. He's going to be going against Sherrod Brown. Bernie Marino is an OG crypto guy. I dealt with him when I was a Hill staffer working for Warren Davidson. And I dealt with him in Cleveland.
Starting point is 01:25:22 He organized Blockland. He got Democrats and Republicans to come. So we could have a situation where we have a really outwardly pro-crypto candidate trying to take down the Senate-baking chair. And so crypto is going to come up a lot more in these conversations. And we'll see if that's enough to move the needle to get Bernie Moreno potentially over the finish line. Or if Sherrod Brown really just hardens his stance and says, I'm not going to do anything positive for the industry trying to take me out uh of congress so that's going to be a very interesting dynamic to watch by the way scott just then two things just happened in the last minute that show that we're definitely kicking off a bull market number one danish
Starting point is 01:25:59 message scott as well asking about the price probably. It's my guess. That's number one. And number two, the father of a friend, literally 30 seconds ago, the father of a friend of mine who knows nothing about crypto, lives in a small village in a third world country, zero about crypto, nothing at all. Just messaged my friend hey it's just the news about something big getting approved in the u.s sell it all sell it all and then and then and then my friend is like oh i heard the news congratulations like how did you hear news like oh my dad sent it to me some big news bitcoin thing getting approved so so uh yeah by the way we should get we should get on a final note we should get Scaramucci on the show tomorrow I don't know how
Starting point is 01:26:46 we didn't think of inviting him I think he's abroad I talked to him yesterday he's in Davos Gorav's with him Gorav's with him now in Davos but yeah I think
Starting point is 01:26:54 we should get him Gorav I'll ping him he's in CFC he'll be with me yeah we'll try we'll try I think you said
Starting point is 01:27:02 next week or something but by the way I just pinned a tweet just really quickly because you can't hear I think you said next week or something. But by the way, I just pinned a tweet just really quickly. You can't hear. I think you can't hear Gaurav. Yeah, he can't hear me. That's on purpose. I'll invite him personally.
Starting point is 01:27:13 No, I just... You're both talking at the same time. I can't hear him. I can't hear him. So I am going to continue to talk about the tweet above that BITO and GBTC are both in the top 10 among overall ETFs in trading volume today. IBIT and FBTC also making it in top 25. Just to give some context on how this volume fits in with bigger picture, just overall superb showing. Remember, ETH futures ETFs barely did $2 million. So just so you guys know, this is going exceptionally, exceptionally well. I'm sorry, Gaurav. I still can't hear you.
Starting point is 01:27:46 But yeah. I've brought it down. Exceptionally well. Yeah, very good. Well, congratulations everyone. We'll cover it again tomorrow, I think, with Ryan. Congratulations. And we've had the other ETFs on stage earlier. Probably popping the champagne bottles right now. Ryan, any celebration
Starting point is 01:28:01 plans for tonight or last night? Yeah, certainly celebrating tonight. We had a little bit of a launch party last night. Our team split between San Francisco and New York. So, I had a little bit of a launch party last night. But I think today, there was a lot of eagerness to make sure everything went smoothly this morning with having the market makers set up and the trading going live. So, tonight should be the real celebration night. So, looking forward to it. It's been a really long journey and really excited.
Starting point is 01:28:29 No drunk texting, Ryan. No drunk spaces, buddy. I'll have to log out of Twitter and leave my two-factor authentication device somewhere else. Ben, you're doing better than the SEC with your security already. Cool. I think this is it. So Scott, the markets, just going to conclude today, the ETF was approved, the ETFs launched.
Starting point is 01:28:50 We had three of them on stage. Well, I'm still on stage. Bitwise, I think, by the way, Bitwise is probably doing the best marketing so far in their approach on all this with the 10%, I think it's like 10% of funds going into... Core developers. Yeah, exactly. And now being on stage,
Starting point is 01:29:07 constantly being on our stage and, and, and, and trying to contribute as much as possible. So congratulations there guys. We had VanEck and Valkyrie on stage earlier as well. Conclusion. This is beating expectations.
Starting point is 01:29:18 All three of them, VanEck, Valkyrie, and Bitwise said that this is above expectations. The numbers, as you just read, Scott kind of proved that. And also, you know,wise said that this is above expectations. The numbers, as you just read, Scott, kind of prove that. And also, you know, they said this is good. This is great.
Starting point is 01:29:29 It's a big expectation, but we expect long-term is going to beat expectations even further. And that's what we said earlier, Scott, like the human brain overestimates short-term, underestimates long-term. Our overestimation of the short-term impact were below reality. And I'll just show you how good this is going in the markets, which a lot of people are saying that sell the news. You'd expect this. Whatever something, everyone anticipates something.
Starting point is 01:29:53 Generally speaking, the markets will dump once the event happens. This is just investing 101. So buy the rumors, sell the news. And I'm not even a trader, so I don't know. It is probably one of the most basic things. And the markets are saying, hey, you can't sell the news because it also depends on the influence and the performance. And based on the performance, even if the price, in my opinion, even if the price did not pump, if it remained the same as good news, considering we didn't sell the news,
Starting point is 01:30:20 but for the market to pump, in my opinion, Scott, and again, you're the expert there, but it's saying the markets are pretty bullish on all this and responding accordingly. So overall, a massive test for crypto. And I think more indicators that we could be in the midst of the final bull run. Yeah, just talking about the market. I mean, Bitcoin's at 46, too. So obviously, it dropped off pretty significantly from that spike up to 49. But I just happened to take a look at Bitcoin dominance and it's considering continuing to absolutely fall off a cliff.
Starting point is 01:30:54 So clearly that trend towards altcoins right now is really well defined. 52.62, but three days ago it was 54.55. A 2% move in Bitcoin dominance is very, very significant. And we can obviously see that in the price of ETH and ETH versus Bitcoin. But altcoins still getting that liquidity as we sort of saw
Starting point is 01:31:17 on the fake tweet and then the actual approval yesterday and continuing today. So that's a real trend for anyone who's trading. Cool. Well, congratulations, everyone. And it's a good place to wrap it. And again, Ryan, congratulations, along with everyone else in the industry. But we'll see everyone again tomorrow, yeah?
Starting point is 01:31:33 Yeah, let's do it. All right. Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye, everyone.

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