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Crypto Update | Could Trump Launch a Strategic Reserve Backed by XRP, SOL and Other 'American-First' Assets?
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- [00:00]
Anthony Georgiadis
We've seen this rally happen with ripple time in and time out. There's a very interesting and choppy token economic component that really underscores the ripple ecosystem. I don't necessarily view it as a sustainable project overall by any means, just with respect to where innovation is, you know, what its position in the market is relative to other assets.
- [00:32]
Jen Sanasi
We all want to believe in something.
- [00:34]
Anthony Georgiadis
In Chinese, belief also means trust.
- [00:38]
Jen Sanasi
We want to trust our systems and.
- [00:39]
Anthony Georgiadis
Each other so we can build a future beyond what we know. Join us at Consensus Hong Kong, where belief becomes real.
- [00:47]
Jen Sanasi
Hello and welcome to Markets Daily, hosted by me, Jen Sanasi. On this show, we navigate the currents shaping the crypto markets, providing insights against the broader financial landscape. So whether you're actively trading or simply fascinated by the volatility that is the crypto markets, this show is your compass to understanding what's happened, where we are, and where we're going. On today's show, we have general partner at Innovating Capital, Anthony Georgiadis joining us. Anthony, welcome.
- [01:13]
Anthony Georgiadis
Thanks for having me.
- [01:15]
Jen Sanasi
Of course. Thanks for being here. Right off the top, I got to get your thoughts on reports that are coming out this morning. They're citing the New York Post, and the reports are saying that the incoming president might consider not only a bitcoin reserve like we've heard in the past, but a crypto reserve prioritizing Seoul and xrp. Talk to me about making sense of this news. Is this something that could happen, and if it did, what would it mean for these assets?
- [01:42]
Anthony Georgiadis
Yep, definitely. I think that's the most interesting part. It really isn't even speaking to a crypto reserve based on bitcoin. It's totally prioritizing US Founded coins, usdc, sol, xrp. And that obviously permeates through Trump's overall administrative policies in terms of just nationalization and obviously taking those same nationalization efforts and leading them towards his digital asset strategies, really emphasizing pure American innovation while potentially sidelining Bitcoin's decentralized ethos. So it really has its pros and cons on both sides. On one side, obviously, the overall effect of looking towards a crypto reserve is extremely positive for the broader digital asset economy itself. But focused on nationalization efforts and potentially leaving certain decentralized assets on the sidelines also has its implications.
- [02:44]
Jen Sanasi
Let's talk a little bit more about that because that's interesting, right? We're talking about all American assets here, all American cryptocurrency, and that's, you know, great for projects here in America. It's definitely a real pivot from what we've experienced over the past four years. But it begs a question about what happens to projects to cryptocurrencies that are purely decentralized like bitcoin. I'd love to hear more on your thoughts there. What happens to the decentralization ethos of this industry?
- [03:16]
Anthony Georgiadis
You know, it's fascinating because as it stands today, there's truly only one token that is sufficiently and purely decentralized and that is Bitcoin. These other projects, these other web three economies, all have the foundational strengths and ability towards a path to that level of decentralized ethos as well. We're still in the early innings of many of these projects. Solana, for example, still has a very tight knit validator set certain controls with regards to governance and things like that. But there's the framework to get to a level of decentralization. This nationalization of digital assets at this stage of the ball game might potentially weaken those efforts over time. And so while I do think that establishing reserve and digital assets is great in theory, it potentially has long term implications to what those objectives of digital assets are were meant to be.
- [04:19]
Jen Sanasi
Yeah, we've been talking a lot about XRP and SOL on this show over the course of this week. As you know, XRP is creeping closer to an all time high this morning. There's a lot of chatter about the potential for a SOL and or an XRP ETF under the new administration. Talk to me a little bit about what, what you're watching from an XRP and SOUL standpoint.
- [04:45]
Anthony Georgiadis
I think Obviously I think ETFs are great, you know, for the market overall. You know, especially when we saw what happened with, you know, G Soul recently. It's not necessarily a true etf. People thought it was when they were acquiring it, you know, neither here nor there. But I think generally speaking what is happening right now is, you know, really this regulatory overhaul obviously plans, you know, to dismiss Gensler, which, you know, he's already noted, he's stepping down, repealing restrictive measures, operation choke point 2.0 effectively are easing a lot of those regulatory hurdles that were really kind of had a, had a dark cloud over certain parts of the crypto market such as Ripple. Obviously we've seen what's happened over the last few years. There's from a regulatory standpoint and then obviously a lot of the high level appointments, whether that's David Sachs or you know, just pushing forward on AI and crypto native administration is definitely getting a lot of people excited on those regulatory frameworks that hindered certain projects from moving forward, particularly those US based ones.
- [05:58]
Jen Sanasi
Yeah, I, I want to, if we look at the market a little bit more broadly, I just pulled up of the tickers on Coindesk here. Markets are looking kind of flat this morning, but then we have XRP up just over 16%. We have sold just up around 7% right now. Why do you think. Let's focus on XRP first. Why do you think we're seeing this big rally just before the inauguration? Do you think it's going to continue?
- [06:26]
Anthony Georgiadis
Yeah, so, I mean, obviously there's been a rally across the market. XRP is definitely one of them. That's cotton, obviously a lot of attention and wind. You know, going back to what I was mentioning. Right. You know, Ripple was highly suppressed as a project overall, you know, during obviously the SEC allegations, the ongoing lawsuits, etc. The victory, you know, really back in 2023, you know, started to set the framework for obviously a turnaround in the project itself. And the, if you look at xrp, it's an American first crypto. That's a huge part of what's really driving the rally. Then of course you have one side of the market where it's been heavily shorted. So I think what we're also seeing is a massive short squeeze in the market itself. You know, there are certain sides of the investor base and really the, you know, true Web three fundamental base that don't really see any fundamental use case for Ripple overall. And so there's been massive short float that's really kind of pushed Ripple in this direction right now. Obviously key technical factors, if you want to look at it, but it's one of those coins that, you know, has, has taken hold. Don't want to throw my dad under the bus, but he doesn't know crypto whatsoever. And you know, he's texted me many times over the last couple months saying, know, should we buy Ripple? And so when you start to see text like that, you know, it indicates that there's probably a little bit of FOMO in the market right now. And then you combine that with those other factors, both regulatory and, you know, technical setups that I mentioned.
- [08:08]
Jen Sanasi
Yeah, I guess I, I mean, given that perspective, given the fact that folks like your dad are reaching out and asking about xrp, it really, you know, feels like the last bull market when people were reaching out and being like, oh, xrp, talk to me about what you think happens under a new regulatory regime in the States. Like you mentioned, Ripple was really bogged down by multiple lawsuits. They Had a little, not a little bit. They had a win last year. Of course the SEC is appealing that under a new administration does XRP just break out because these, these factors that have previously been holding them down, that have previously been taking up a lot of resources and potentially not allowed them to launch the various different products that they may have had in the pipeline, these go away. Does XRP kind of break out as a standout project in 2025?
- [09:10]
Anthony Georgiadis
You know, it's certainly possible. It's fascinating to think about because the prices where it's at now are its all time highs from almost seven years ago, which is crazy to think about. So, you know, you definitely want to put it in somewhat perspective. We've seen this rally happen with Ripple time in and time out. There's a very interesting and choppy token economic component that really underscores the ripple ecosystem. I don't necessarily view it as a sustainable project overall by any means, just with respect to where innovation is, you know, what its position in the market is relative to other assets, you know, particularly as some of those unique money type features of, of Bitcoin are starting to pan out and whatnot. That being said, you know, there still is a development community that surrounds it. There's a hyper fast growing community. And so, you know, this could potentially be the cycle and the regulatory tailwind to push it forward and have it find a cementing and really lasting place in the market.
- [10:22]
Jen Sanasi
Now I'm asking you for pure speculation here. Do you think we see a crypto reserve with all American coins come to fruition this year?
- [10:34]
Anthony Georgiadis
It would be highly unlikely to see that come to fruition this year. While I'm extremely bullish and pro that happening, you know, I think that happening in that sort of a period of time, particularly with how you know, legislation moves, would be quite surprising just given all the underlying requirements that go in with that. You know, from custody to security to whatever it might be and again back to really the key point at the, at the onset, you know, how do you handle obviously governance of those protocols at that point in time? If you go acquire, you know, 30, 40, 50% of the outstanding float of Solana, you know, then really what is the point of Salon at that point in time? If you know, you have obviously that underlying control, it's never going to be better than centralized protocols or network, it's never going to be faster, it's never going to compete with Visa or whatnot. What's really the point?
- [11:36]
Jen Sanasi
Yeah, I want to talk to you a little bit about bitcoin especially ahead of the inauguration on Monday. But I want to dig a little bit deeper into Seoul. We talked about your views on XRP and some of the developments over at Ripple. How do you see Seoul performing over the course of 2025? Is it one of the standout projects or do we see it get dethroned by one of the many projects that are chasing it and giving Solana a little bit of run for its money?
- [12:05]
Anthony Georgiadis
I think Soul's main point of weakness is similar to, you know, certain projects we've seen in the past. You know, L1s that have been kind of highly native custom and that really pertains to interoperability and obviously kind of cross chain compatibility. And from a ecosystem perspective, you know, they've largely been focused on the and you know, just full disclosure, we've been an early investor for quite some time, so very pro Solana overall. But I think the weakness really falls into the kind of, you know, we will build it and they will come sort of narrative. They have been less focused on innovative measures towards cross chain ecosystem and more focused on sole native applications and innovation under kind of the confines that they will continue to capture development, mind share. They'll continue to capture interest in obviously new ecosystem development measures and whatnot. And I think that that is a little bit of a slippery slope if you have the thesis that we do with regards to the Web3 ecosystem, which is that it's going to be a multi chain approach of many different ones that can communicate in real time and all have their own strengths. So my point being is, you know, while we've continued to see steady growth, whether that's N NFT activity or DeFi activity or volume or whatever it might be, they've continued to really operate in an island of its own know, limited by a handful of, you know, purely centralized bridging technologies and whatnot and don't necessarily have the same level of multi chain compat compatibility that a lot of the other L1s have established over the last couple of years. So definitely anticipating and, and excited to see how that really pans out this year.
- [14:10]
Jen Sanasi
Okay, let's, let's move to bitcoin now there. Bitcoin had a, a big rally at the beginning of December. We've seen a little bit of a pullback. It looked like it was going to touch dollars this morning, but it's back. Oh, it just, it just dropped below $98,000. So talk to me about how you expect to see bitcoin perform. Of course everyone is watching Monday that is when the incoming president, President Donald Trump is going to be sworn in, he's going to take office. Does bitcoin go to the moon after that?
- [14:44]
Anthony Georgiadis
This is a, this is an interesting one as well because, you know, it's, it's right now more than, you know, really. We've, we've seen it a little bit here, you know, because there was a, a point in time over the last year or so where it really broke away from being that, you know, risk on asset. And that's always been really our long term, you know, thesis here that it's really a safe haven, diversified digital asset that doesn't necessarily have tight correlation to obviously more, you know, debt based economy type measures. Then last week, obviously, you know, we saw an amazing job report, you know, great economic news, bad market news, right. You know, concerns over whether or not there were going to be, you know, certain monetary policy measures in place leading towards rate cuts as fast as we anticipated. And you saw a sell off in the market and that obviously impacted bitcoin dramatically as well, you know, but we saw a lot of strength over the last few days in btc. I think that kind of goes back to obviously what we've been talking about from a regulatory standpoint. So I think there's a little bit of a, of a push and pull here right now, you know, on both the monetary policy side, Bitcoin behaving a little bit more like a risk on asset versus the fact that, hey, there are a few catalysts in place here that, you know, may push bitcoin into a completely different segment of the market pending this current administration. And so there's a lot of speculative trading going on right now, lending to a lot of this choppiness, I guess.
- [16:20]
Jen Sanasi
On that note, do you think we're going to see a sell the news event happen on Monday?
- [16:26]
Anthony Georgiadis
If you look, historically speaking it would, you know, potentially indicate so. But there's so many other factors in the market nowadays. Obviously ETF flows are a huge part of it, necessity towards rebalancing and whatnot that really drive a lot of the price movement, volume, etc. And we've generally seen much more stability relative to these one off catalysts. The choppiness over the last couple of months as well has also been important with a number of institutional players that have really come in and started to really trade bitcoin both short and long. And there's been an exceptional amount of short float available. And I think we've seen short selling pressure over the last couple of weeks as well, but I think all of these factors have created a little bit more of a less volatile market than what we've seen in previous years. And so the sell the new news events I don't anticipate as being as detrimental as, as potentially a few years ago.
- [17:33]
Jen Sanasi
Okay, as we wrap up the show here, I'm going to ask you for two predictions. If you don't want to do them, it's totally okay. But where do you see the price of Bitcoin heading towards the end of the year?
- [17:43]
Anthony Georgiadis
What?
- [17:44]
Jen Sanasi
Where do you think we're going to hit this year?
- [17:46]
Anthony Georgiadis
You know, I won't say this year, but I will say, you know, and I stand by this. You know, bitcoin's obviously a multimillion dollar asset in my lifetime and I continue to firmly believe that. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a quarter of a million dollars, you know, by the end of the year whatsoever.
- [18:04]
Jen Sanasi
Okay. And second, second, this is not really a prediction. It's more. I want to draw a little bit of your knowledge out for our audience. What's the one thing you think that people who are watching the markets, people who are investing in crypto are not paying enough attention to right now?
- [18:25]
Anthony Georgiadis
I touched on it a little bit. With regards to some of the multi chain compatibility, people are obviously diving into meme coins. They want, you know, to make the quick trade. I highly suggest not doing that. I think it's a very, very dangerous game to play. You know, people obviously jumping into, you know, the US Based assets ripple, etc for the reasons that we mentioned and potentially not paying attention to some of the key foundational players out there that are really kind of setting the stage for really what all of this stuff that we're talking about is going to do. This regulatory push is going to open up the door towards true Web three economies and narratives. And so if you look at multi chain compatibility type assets, some of the newer L1s that are more application specific out there, that really serve a purpose, whether that's injective for decentralized financial applications, whether that's Web three protocols for decentralized storage, whatever it might be, these types of not sexy by any means, but they're going to be very, very critical and are what I would view as potentially undervalued on a token economic basis.
- [19:44]
Jen Sanasi
Anthony, thank you so much for joining Markets Daily today. It was a pleasure.
- [19:48]
Anthony Georgiadis
Awesome. Thanks so much for having me.
- [19:50]
Jen Sanasi
And thank you to our audience for watching. If you enjoy listening to this podcast, subscribe to the CoinDesk podcast network that is available on all podcast platforms. If you prefer to watch us, we are on YouTube. Subscribe to us there. Give us a thumbs up and we will see you for Inauguration Day on Monday.