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- [00:00]
Leah Walt
My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for Career Day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.
- [00:14]
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- [00:31]
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- [01:18]
Leah Walt
Let's say that all the ETFs continue to see these types of inflows, yet also larger institutions. The sovereigns, the insurance, the pension. They're also asking for $100 million buy that day. Who's selling? It was always the question we asked back in 2017. What if we got there? I hope it wasn't you that sold along the way.
- [01:46]
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- [02:22]
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- [02:35]
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 are 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. Joining Today's show is SolStrategy CEO Leah Walt. Leah, welcome.
- [02:59]
Leah Walt
Thank you so much for having me.
- [03:01]
Jen Sanasi
Of course. What a day for you to Join markets daily 100k Bitcoin last night, I think everyone is celebrating. Talk to me about how you're feeling, how you were feeling last night and this morning.
- [03:15]
Leah Walt
I mean, it's incredible for everybody, right? And especially for folks that have had to be in the ecosystem for a long time. It was actually kind of nostalgic. I went back to my former partner's tweets in 2017 and YouTube videos that we were on with some of the bitcoiners back in the day, like Jack Mozuko and Jimmy Song, and talking about how this was a possibility and, you know, we're not soothsayers, but it was a lot of optimism back then, and just the validation that it actually got there is surreal. I mean, it's very emotional in many ways. Celebratory. You know, nostalgic of the days when it was just us at conferences. I mean, really, really, really cool. Really cool.
- [04:02]
Jen Sanasi
Now, you don't have to answer this question. I ask almost everyone, and I don't always get an answer, but we've hit 100k. A lot of people have come on this show, have predicted the 100k by the end of 2024. We're heading into 2025. Where do you think the price of bitcoin goes in 2025?
- [04:20]
Leah Walt
Gosh, you know, I've never done a price prediction on.
- [04:23]
Jen Sanasi
I know. That's why I said, you don't have to answer.
- [04:25]
Leah Walt
No, it's usually I'm cheeky and say one bitcoins, one bitcoin, but I really think that we could hit over 250k next year. I mean, this is just marching, especially if we start taking more assets from gold investors and start seeing that type of allocation from, you know, strong hands, as we've already seen. I don't know why we can't continue to march all the way up to maybe even a million in the next, you know, three years. It's just a matter of asset shifting. Now, will the bitcoin market be able to handle that type of liquidity and demand? That's another question. But I do think that we have the possibility next year of hitting 250k, maybe more.
- [05:10]
Jen Sanasi
Tell me a little bit more about what you were just saying. Can the market handle that kind of liquidity and demand. What does that mean? Talk us through it for our audience.
- [05:19]
Leah Walt
Yeah, absolutely. So especially right now, we're seeing such demand from the ETFs. Now, the way that an ETF works, and especially that they're paper traded at the moment, not in kind redemptions, they will need to continue to accumulate rather than sell, if investors are buying rather than selling. So it does create this very sticky situation that at times maybe doesn't present true market discovery, given, you know, you're kind of, you're, you're stuck. And again, they need to replicate what the actual interest in, you know, buying is into the etf. However, let's, let's fast forward. Okay. Let's say that all the ETFs continue to see these types of inflows, yet also larger institutions, the sovereigns, the insurance, the pension, they're also asking for a hundred million dollars buy that day. You know, who's selling? So that's always the question, right? Like, all right, so these guys are buying, but who they buy it from? Was it you? You know, it was always the question we asked back in 2017, what if we got there? I hope it wasn't you that sold along the way. But at that point, liquidity should dry up. So it will be an interesting dynamic. I think that it'll get solved because of the opportunity to solve it. But who's selling at that point? And are they able to sell in order to meet demand, especially for the ETFs who do need to have the right shares recorded to the DTCC at the end of the day. So I think that's a future problem. This, you know, watch the spreads. Liquidity has been tight in the past. OTC market makers have a very vast variety of fees that they're charging, depending on where they're also sourcing their tokens. It'll be interesting to see if the miners come into play and start selling as liquidity providers as well. I think it's a future problem. But who's going to sell it?
- [07:19]
Jen Sanasi
Yeah, that, that is a really good question. And I mean, not gonna be me. I look forward. Yeah, I was like, it's not gonna be me. I just look forward to seeing how we solve this problem. But for today, we're celebrating. Leah, the last time you and I chatted, you were at the helm at Valkyrie. You are now the CEO of Soul Strategies. Talk to me about that transition. You're all in on the soul ecosystem now, regardless of us talking about Bitcoin and how excited.
- [07:50]
Leah Walt
Well, maybe I'll stick On bitcoin? No. So that's absolutely right. And obviously it was amazing being at Valkyrie, co founding and running it for four and a half years and getting the ETFs out and the different funds and being there for that raise. You know, actually Stephen and I, when we, you know, co founded Valkyrie, we put in our application for the Spot Pick wing ETF in February 2021. So it was very emotional then as well. But why do I say Bitcoin? Before we renamed Soul Strategies to Soul Strategies, the company was actually Cypherpunk holdings. And it was actually the first company in North America to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet and make bitcoin investments and be an exposure plate for bitcoin. Real OG bitcoiners did it. I'll leave their names out for now, but it was very cool. And they actually took the ticker hodl back in the day in 2018. So, you know, publicly traded on the CSE for a very long time now. Now when I decided to join this summer management, the board and I sat down and said, okay, well what's the opportunity now? The ETFs are out, there's exposure to Bitcoin in a variety of ways that are efficient vehicles. So what's the opportunity? And we were all excited about Solana for a long time, but we saw the opportunity for the market to be the first and the only still, you know, bitcoin company. Focus, sorry, company focused on the Solana ecosystem. So to be a Solana company with infrastructure to boot. We're running a validator business for the market to be able to actually invest in Solana. As of right now, we're the only ones doing it. There was a PR file this morning that we've submitted our application to NASDAQ as well. So hopefully in the future we will be cross borders for that more easily. We're OTC at the moment, but that would provide a lot more access, obviously. And you know, we're, we're obviously very bullish. Solana, to your point, what does it.
- [09:43]
Jen Sanasi
Mean to be a Solana company?
- [09:47]
Leah Walt
So as you can see from our public filings, the vast, vast majority of our balance sheet is invested in Seoul. We're staking that SOL to our validators and we're running other validators for third parties as well. So a very simple but straightforward and focused business. We acquired another validator company called Cogent Crypto, which very greatly expanded our validator business. We just announced an LOI for another validator business that we're trying to acquire. That would bring our assets up to almost 500 million Canadian on validators. So very much staking our own soul. Balance sheet is in Sol. Majority of balance sheet is in Seoul. And running a validator business for Solana.
- [10:32]
Jen Sanasi
Tell me about those conversations you were having when you decided, you know, we want to focus on the Solana ecosystem. What made it stand out above all of the other ecosystems that it's competing with?
- [10:43]
Leah Walt
Yeah, absolutely. We're very excited about Solana. I know we're talking about Bitcoin at 100k and obviously I decided to wear this shirt, but Solana is very interesting. We think it has, you know, has been undervalued for a very long time. That's proven to be true. But there's a lot of builders on Solana. You see the network activity increasing every single day. It's still highly efficient. Transaction fees are fractional of a penny. It's very fast. It's just a very fascinating ecosystem. And especially when you're really looking at maybe comparing it to Ethereum, it's almost a no brainer of where the opportunity is now as a company, as a fiduciary to the shareholders that we have and thinking about what's accretive. There was and is no sole ETFs in all of North America and there are no Solana companies and there's no companies that are singularly focused on Solana. So we also thought that that would be an important milestone for the market, given all the demand that you see in trying to acquire Solspy around the world, that, hey, we can actually show up and provide that opportunity to investors and hopefully the sole ETFs get approved one day and that would just be a rising tide for all of us, given we're a company rather than a fund. So we think that, you know, we have an important differentiation that would provide two different opportunities for investors in the market to invest in Solana.
- [12:09]
Jen Sanasi
You know, there were a few folks who came on the show that said if there was a Trump win in the United States, there would likely be a Solana ETF approved in 2025. What do you think? Do you think we're going to see one approved in 2025?
- [12:24]
Leah Walt
I think that we could. Again, having, you know, submitted a Bitcoin ETF application in 2021, I'll never make a prediction on the SEC, even if they are pro crypto, but I do think that we will. I think it's probably Q3, Q4 though. There's still a lot to be figured out at this sec as well as at the OSC in Canada, the OSC also hasn't Approved any sole ETFs or staked sole ETFs. Three IQ filed a public, you know, filing well earlier in this year and it still hasn't been approved. From my understanding, there's concerns around floodgates opening. So whereas, you know, the SEC and the OSC are still determining, how do you one, classify Seoul, two classify if there's potential investment contracts around staking solutions and therefore, you know, having it as part of that product. And then three, is that opening the floodgates? How do we differentiate SOL from the other tokens that also have applied as you know, in ETF structures such as XRP, HBAR, et cetera. So hopefully in the end 2025, but I think I'm not holding my breath, but I am, I am rooting for all the issuers and as an issuer myself, try. We're trying to help anywhere where we can.
- [13:41]
Jen Sanasi
That's interesting. The Bitcoin ETF was approved in Canada before it was approved in the United States. So to hear what's happening in Canada with the SOL ETF maybe is a little bit of a predictor, but I guess we can't really correlate events with changing administrations.
- [13:57]
Leah Walt
Yeah, that, that's right. And they were well before. Right. So the, the Bitcoin ETFs in Canada were approved in February 2021 and they were, you know, fantastic. You had purpose, you had evolve. And Even before that, 3 IQ had a listing close in fund. Right. So very much, you know, a vantard. And also they had approved staked eth ETFs quite early. Now go to the timeline. So we have February 2021 with spot ETFs approved in Canada. Valkyrie and Pro shares were finally approved for futures ETF in October 2021 and then obviously only approved for Spot earlier this year. So very much we lag behind the osc, which generally the Canadian markets have always been seen as much more regulatory forward across the board for even public companies listing with a $2 million market cap really like, you know, very, very open. So I think that's absolutely right. Until the OSC makes stronger moves, which is a much more regulatory forward. Government and environment. Again, while the miners originally listed there, I think that the SEC is likely going to lag behind that, which is not an issue. It gives us another year to educate the market. I think just because they're not approved doesn't, doesn't hinder the growth of the solana. Ecosystem or, you know, any access. This is just, you know, part of the process, and that's totally fine.
- [15:22]
Jen Sanasi
Leah, I got to ask you. Why go all in on Seoul when there are so many layer ones popping up every day seemingly trying to solve similar issues that Solana solves? Why not diversify a little bit? Why be a Solana company?
- [15:39]
Leah Walt
Yeah, we want to say singularly focused so that the market gets a singularly focused investment opportunity. So you're absolutely right. There's great opportunities out there, both for building blockchains and also for token appreciation opportunities. But that would muddy the waters for what investors actually want. We are singularly focused because if an investor wants exposure to and direct exposure to Solana, we're there. So tight thesis.
- [16:09]
Jen Sanasi
Talk to me a little bit about institutional interest in the Solana ecosystem.
- [16:15]
Leah Walt
Yeah, it's really increasing. And we're the first ones to witness this, which is just fascinating. So what's been most interesting to us is the changeover. When we hit a doll from when I took over the helm, it was 11 cents. So we've seen this enormous ride in the past couple months. It's been very fun, but it started extremely retail. And then when we hit a dollar, retail very much took profits. And it was a different set of hands that came in that was institutional. We also saw that over our OTC ticker by seeing all the flows coming from the US Millions of shares traded a day over the OTC ticker. So that was very interesting for us to see that this is very much a retail product. You know, everyone's still understanding Seoul. There's not Seoul ETFs out yet. And the importance of that, of course, is Fidelity and the other larger giants going out and educating. So it's still relatively new for the market. Yet you saw that change of hands and you saw the, you know, the demand increasing both from the United States over that OTC ticker as well as in Canada. So I am unable to see, with the lack of data at the moment, exactly who's buying until those filings come out. But it is evident and available and on public record if you go to any of the websites, for Canada to see that it really has changed hands from retail to institutional. So it's very interesting.
- [17:43]
Jen Sanasi
And, Leah, just as we wrap up here, we're sitting in December 2025 is right around the corner. What do you think the driving narrative is going to be for this ecosystem as a whole if we maybe look outside of Solana and even Bitcoin?
- [17:56]
Leah Walt
Sure. I mean, I think for bitcoin, it's everyone asking for some bitcoin ledgers under the Christmas tree, likely at the end of the year. No, I think the driving narrative is this very important psychological level of 100,000. Breaking 100,000 is just this enormous psychological barrier that we've been going up against. And now I think the floodgates are open. No one can deny the importance of bitcoin as an asset and as a institutional accumulation and with the top institutions in the world. So to your question, as we know, alts usually correlate. So I think that that's going to be interesting to watch to see who starts playing in the Hotel California of the exchanges, what tokens they're playing with and if there's more enthusiasm and venture capital dollars into these other blockchains and other layer ones on what they're building. But I think allies are on bitcoin and also Solana going into the year and if they can keep up the momentum, and I think they can.
- [18:57]
Jen Sanasi
Leah, thanks so much for joining Markets Daily today.
- [19:00]
Leah Walt
Thank you for having me.
- [19:01]
Jen Sanasi
And thank you to our audience. If you enjoy listening to Markets Daily, subscribe to the Coindesk Podcast network that's available on all podcast platforms. And if you prefer to watch, we are on YouTube. Subscribe to CoinDesk, give us a thumbs up and we'll see you tomorrow.
- [19:18]
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- [19:40]
Leah Walt
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