← The Wolf Of All Streets
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- [00:01]
Scott
Morning everybody. Happy Wednesday and welcome to Crypto Town Hall. Every single day around 10:15am Eastern Standard Time here on X. We actually have quite a few stories today that are worth discussing. Of course we have this title he'll hear Sailor to burn keys to 17k bitcoin on his death. Definitely an interesting story worth discussing. He basically said to Laura Shin and this was repeating something he said in the past that that as a contribution to the community he would burn his personal Bitcoin ease when he dies, obviously adding some little bit of deflation as a symbol to help the community. His passion and commitment is absolutely unmatched. This obviously coming at the same time as it's been announced that they've raised $711 million in perpetual strife Prep shares to buy Bitcoin, I believe so Saylor continuing to go all in obviously on his Bitcoin bet at the moment. Another story worth discussing I think today, maybe we'll start here, is that GameStop, after much speculation, has announced that they will unanimously, unanimously approve an update to its investment policy to add Bitcoin as a Treasury reserve asset. I haven't checked the price of GameStop today but I know it was up about 13 14% pre market. How big of news is it to see GameStop here following MicroStrategy in adding Bitcoin is a Treasury asset and do we think that we're going to see others follow? Would love anyone on the panel's opinion. Go ahead, jump in. Let's start. I'm going to call a random name soon. Dave, Go. I can always count on you.
- [01:41]
Dave
I was wondering whether like I thought people might be tired of listening to me after the last few days. Look, it's a double edged sword. I mean GameStop is probably one of the most likely companies to deploy cash into Bitcoin because it is a way for them to clearly use the MicroStrategy playbook. So that's, that's very positive in the long run when they do it. Of course people in crypto probably figure I there might be some small brains out there who think they already have and therefore the news is priced in. No, I'm sure that's not true. That's not the way corporate America works. They probably haven't even figured out their custodial solutions or what providers are going to use, etc. So it's, it's more of a longer term thing. But the flip side to that is that a lot of other companies might be given pause because they don't want to be grouped in the same bucket as GameStop because of the way that they're viewed on Wall Street. And you know you could. I personally think that's absurd, but I also know that it's probably true. So there is that.
- [02:47]
Mark
Yeah, I love to jump in on that. I think you're absolutely right, Dave, that The fact that GameStop is doing it brings a carnival atmosphere to it. And any, I would say company, as Sailor said, that doesn't have to do this because the people who are adopting Bitcoin are, are the folks like the Semler and, and strategy that were basically dying melting ice cubes as he said. And GameStop knows how to play liquidity pumps. Back in 21 I was at a bank and we followed crowded trades and as soon as GameStop went up, instead of turn off the sell button, what they did is they basically issued stock. They know how to stay alive and use capital markets very similar to strategy. So I agree with you. And the analog like we talked about last week is in the investment side. You still have a lot of large wirehouses who are still adopting a kind of a Bidenesque FTX rear view window look at Bitcoin digital assets. And I think GameStop probably doesn't advance treasury adoption by any stretch and hopefully doesn't hurt it.
- [04:04]
Scott
Yeah, that's an interesting take. I really never thought about the fact that we can't consider any of the players who have done it yet as quote unquote legitimate. So you know, I guess we're waiting for still a Microsoft or a Dell, Apple legal, something like that.
- [04:23]
Douglas
I can throw in one anecdote here. Last week I'm so based in Dubai and I was meeting with German media company with something like 7 billion euros of assets and their CFO is having this conversation, initiating this conversation around, look, what is our exposure to Bitcoin Eth Sol in terms of balance sheet? So I think this is definitely coming. It's probably not an immediate thing. I echo the thoughts shared already that GameStop is probably just jumping in for the memes and trying to grab attention. But there is definitely much more serious conservative money all over the world that is considering this asset now on their balance sheet.
- [05:13]
Scott
So when do you think we see that movement start to show? Obviously we had the GAAP accounting rules finally changing last year which allowed companies certainly in the United States to actually do this, which they likely couldn't before because of the risk. You know, we've heard a lot of rumors of bigger companies potentially adding. But is it time? I mean, is this something we're going to start to see announced beyond the gamestops of the world. Anybody hearing anything? Douglas, what are your thoughts?
- [05:42]
Zilian
Well, I think that GameStop, in order for the board to approve it, must have already pitched who they're going to use for custody, how they're going to execute, how they're going to buy. So my guess is that they already have their standard operating procedure in place. I think that they'll probably follow the MicroStrategy playbook for sure. These guys love to issue equity whenever it jumps up in price. I think that a lot of companies may think of GameStop in a negative way, but at the same time, when they see a stock going up 14% overnight on the back of making an announcement like that, that's pretty juicy to a CEO, all he has to do is make an announcement that now they have the ability to buy Bitcoin and they don't actually buy it yet and see a nice pop in their stock price. And given that the CEO's job is to maximize the stock price, I think that that's a very positive thing. I wouldn't be surprised if within the next couple of weeks we actually see the first sort of buying signals coming from GameStop. If they actually start announcing it in the same sort of way that MicroStrategy does, they may be doing it quietly or they may want to make a lot of noise when they do it. But I think that every single corporate balance sheet probably has exposure to Bitcoin now because they're invested in index funds and index funds include MicroStrategy or GameStop. And so in that regard, it's sort of like if they see the boost is coming from what's in the underlying of their index funds, then they may think, well, maybe I should start buying the underlying as well. Now we've already heard or we spent the last couple of weeks talking about how nation states are now buying Bitcoin. And so now we've gone on the extreme where you have meme stocks like GameStop getting involved. And I guess what everyone's looking for is something in the middle. When's Berkshire Hathaway or Apple or Microsoft going to start buying or start announcing that they're involved, involved in Bitcoin. But I think that we all understand that that's inevitable and we just have to be patient. I think that yeah, it'd be great if we saw Bitcoin making a big jump today in the back of this, but it won't until the buying begins. But the buying will begin and we just have to Be patient.
- [07:47]
Scott
This was telegraphed to some degree because there were the pictures of Saylor with the CEO of GameStop a few weeks ago or maybe even months ago at this point. So it's led to a lot of conjecture. We know he was out on the roadshow trying to convert CEOs. Clearly it worked in this case. It will will be interesting to see their first announcement whether they've already been buying. Mark, go ahead. Mark. Had your hand up?
- [08:11]
Mark
Yeah, thanks. I have a slow mouse move here on my end. You know, we're, we're looking at the treasury trade, which I think is a. Is. I think it was. Doug was speaking about the fact that this announcement wouldn't be made unless they had some of the Rails set up in the process. And I do agree, I think people are exploring their companies, exploring this. I think the shift, if I was to look at six months out, where the announcements will be, it'll be on the corporate or the industry front. Things like what Kraken is doing with Ninja Trader, the 1.5 billion dollar acquisition which gives Ninja access to foreign markets. Kraken obviously as an FCM, trading futures as more ETFs come out and more futures get traded. So I think that's going to be maybe more impactful. And then what Coinbase, I don't know what, few folks have more intel than I do on the degree of talks with Derbit, but the derivatives trading, given the, the change from choke 20 to let's, you know, let's go full throttle into digital assets, I think the business side is really going to probably have more of an impact on the market than just treasury, although I do love that trade for companies.
- [09:24]
Scott
Coinbase acquiring Deribit, if it happened, would be by far the biggest acquisition in news in this space. Deribit is the leading futures exchange by many, many, many multiples in the world for Bitcoin and Eth options. So I mean that would be just absolutely massive. I guess the question would be whether it would then become available to United States users, although I doubt it in the short term. But still them business would be massive. I think it. Did anybody see the val? I can't remember. 4 to 6 million somewhere in there, say 5 million billion. Excuse me? Something like that.
- [09:57]
Mark
Yeah. And the, that was the ball margin and the margin on derivatives for these folks is just tremendous versus their trading and custody business, lower margin. So that's why I think it's. It'll be a huge. As you said, Mateo.
- [10:16]
Mateo
Yeah. So it's estimated that the GameStop will be looking at potentially 10% annually, which is about 500 million of its cash value. So not insignificant for GameStop itself. But I don't think that really moves the needle on Bitcoin and I don't know that GameStop is taken so seriously. I do agree with the sense that we have quite a bit of companies that we would have to kind of scan the market for those who are cash rich with fledgling business models to be following the microstrategies approach. And I just don't think there's that many operationally that are out there. So my anticipation is that we actually see more companies following the Tesla model back in the day, which is accepting crypto assets from Stablecoin, bitcoin, et cetera as a portion of their payment processing to actually build a lower risk reserves than taking cash balances. That could affect bottom line P and L risk metrics and investor speculation. Although the bump on the stock price is significant.
- [11:27]
Fred
Yeah, just on the GameStop I think that I see from previous weeks a lot of conversations from international company, not necessarily US but international public companies, which has basically the same characteristics as MicroStrategy or GameStop or more like MicroStrategy, that have ability to access capital at quite an advantageous rate and they see deployment in Bitcoin, a good pump for their liquidity, liquidity of their stock, etc. So I see obviously not a lot happening in the US market, I mean probably trying to propagate in the US market but I see a lot of propagation in the international markets. And that's for international markets that's significant because it gives local stockholders exposure not only to, to Bitcoin itself which in a lot of jurisdictions they, they don't have exposure to, but also it gives them exposure to an international play and that is quite valuable in a lot of emergent markets and the international markets. So I think that this playbook is going to proliferate quite a bit. I didn't see Michael Saylor actually trying to convince international players to do it because that's basically the nature of US markets is very US centric in general. But I think that that where you're going to see a lot of proliferation around.
- [12:55]
Scott
Douglas.
- [12:57]
Zilian
Well, I think Meta Planet's done a good job in getting international companies involved. I think that if you saw their stockholder meeting, which I think was about this past week, it seemed like it was overflowing and they're getting a lot of interest obviously in Japan really for the reasons that Zilian just discussed, which is that the Japanese investor sees that investing in Meta Planet is a positive because they get exposure to Bitcoin. So I think that we are seeing this internationally. Meta Planet maybe is leading this more than Sailor but metaplanet is obviously taking the sailor idea.
- [13:32]
Scott
Beyond. I haven't checked of late but Metaplanet's performance I think at the end of 2024 was the best performing stock on the entire Japanese market. Right. So I think people have seen the effect of doing this in a sort of strategic manner in the way that MicroStrategy did even without raising the debt to buy more. Go ahead Mark. I don't know if it's a quick, quick mouse again but your, your hand is up Zilian. You can go ahead.
- [13:58]
Mark
Yeah.
- [13:58]
Fred
Just another note on the Jap. I can see a lot of interest for a US based Stablecoin or any non yen denominated Stablecoin because for job the Japanese for the Japanese consumers which is retail in general they're very interested in being able to quickly exit completely the Japanese financial system and US holdings up until now via traditional ways did not allow them to do that. So this is a little bit outside of the subject but Stablecoin exposure is something that is extremely interesting to to Japanese retail and another another. Another thing also just a very quick one. Yeah on Derbyt. So Deribit I'm very happy with that for personal reasons because kind of involved but but yeah look this this market again this this derivatives market has been has been quite a quite a segment in in. In. In the digital asset space and I think this acquisition is basically going to going to give Deribit and Coinbase a new leg. So I think that is. That is a fantastic news and hopefully that that that will will come to fruition.
- [15:16]
Scott
Your comments before made me think you said that many would obviously take the Tesla strategy of accepting Bitcoin or stable coins to kind of build a Treasury that way. Obviously that didn't last very nobody really did it and they you know it was kind of one of the catalysts I think for the bear market last time when Tesla Tesla stopped accepting Bitcoin. But I want to talk more about stablecoins. I agree. We've seen companies like Stripe already already wholesale adopt stable coins. We had news this week that Trump launching a a dollar backed Stablecoin and Fidelity I think looking to launch a Stablecoin So that seems to be a different conversation. Obviously holding stable coins on your balance sheet is just holding dollars but I I think that stablecoin adoption massively increasing here and Maybe one of the big stories for corporate adoption as well. Matteo, go ahead.
- [16:08]
Mateo
Yeah, I, I think so too. I mean I, I think that, that, that that's exactly it. It's just the dynamic Rails being built into corporate finance and then being able to. I mean that's where it boils down to where it's like it's a big difference between unloading extra cash reserves and taking on risk versus building in Rails that actually save the company money, affect the bottom line, improve P and L, give a better customer experience, make you more global, bridge geopolitical lines and it can actually de risk the organization rather than apply more risk. So I think that that's really compelling and just one little comment on the deribit thing. I think the big story here is that M and A of a big scale is on the table for the crypto industry in a way that we've really never seen before. And that's actually extremely promising. And I think it adds to the fact that people are seeing what's happening in the rail development and they are wanting that institutional full dynamic operational capacity to be able to implement it and to see these mergers and acquisitions come to light go through is just very promising.
- [17:23]
Scott
Anyone else thoughts on this increased adoption of stablecoins? We're likely to get legislation. I think that's the lowest hanging fruit in the coming months. Mark, did you have a comment? Go ahead.
- [17:35]
Mark
Yeah, I just went through a bunch of the stablecoin legislation and the pace of it that went through is, is pretty legion. And I think the only the last hurdle is which one will be surviving, the Genius act or the Stable act that's proposed by the House and I think the Genius act by the Senate committee is the one that'll be the surviving and it's actually gives states and federal agent entities the ability to have stable coins. It's again, I think that's the one that's going to be driving industry. The banking system which someone just mentioned is, is broader. It helps our businesses, it gives them global access and obviously from the treasury standpoint it takes care of Besson's role of trying to sell 10 million, $10 trillion of of T bills coming up in the next 12 months. You get a lot of new buyers. It just is a win win incentives are there. So I agree. I think that'll be the biggest legislation or the biggest win for the industry in the next six months.
- [18:42]
Scott
Fred?
- [18:45]
Amateo
Yeah, just echoing what Mark said on the sea change with stablecoins and why it's so important is because the pace of how the government is changing and viewing this just can't be overstated. In the Ripple case, which is, thank God, over with, I was very happy to see that end. But at the tail end of that case, when they were trying to come up with the injunction and what they were going to prevent Ripple from doing in the future, after the part of the case they lost, the SEC started throwing around, well, hey judge, did you know that they're about to do their stablecoin and they're going to release this? And that's a security too. I mean we got to talk about that. And that never got resolved in front of the sec. It was, you know, the end of the case by then. But the, the SEC was making a play of course under Gary Gensler to say that stable coins are going to be securities. So I mean just. And that was only four months ago. So for that to be over with and done and that kind of hostility to be gone, yeah, it's going to take a few months to get the legislation, but I mean the amount of unlocking of potential that stable coins is going to do for crypto just. I know we all want it to happen now, but it will happen soon and it's going to be vast. And I don't think even, even everybody here can fully appreciate how that's going to impact the markets.
- [19:59]
Scott
Dave?
- [20:03]
Dave
Yeah, I think you got to be careful, Fred. I think it will get there, but until there is, until we actually see either a market structure bill or at a bare minimum, Kintens and Atkins coming out with joint ways of working together, you have to understand that there's no model for markets where you have a pair pairwise trading with one security and one a commodity because there's overlapping rules, conflicting rules, etc. There's a lot of stuff that has to happen. I think the SEC will take the approach of no action relief to try to help, but just to contextualize people what I'm talking about. If you look at volumes on exchanges, the reason that stablecoins are traded on Kraken, et cetera, the reason it always used to trade tether was because they had the tether based pairs that traded alongside the bitcoin based pairs. And people want to be able to trade in and out and do efficient arbitrage to keep the prices in line. All of those things are necessary plumbing for markets. None of those things have a legal framework right now. That's work. And the SEC is going to try to do things quickly. They'll probably use no action relief. I'm sure, Kintens at the CFTC will also, but there is a lot of work to get there. What it does, however mean is that builders who are building new models, who are building things and brokers who want to move into this business will all be able to start doing it. They may not be able to push the actual go button until toward the end of the year because it'll probably take at least six months to get all this stuff resolved. But it is very exciting and it is very bullish. It's just be careful about the timing. I think one of the reasons the market's doing what the market's doing, which is still sitting in a range, still kind of bopping around the same pricing, still highly correlated, related to risk assets, is precisely because none of this stuff is immediately on the horizon. So while I'm not telling people to slow their roll, I am saying, you know, markets try to anticipate things. The market is basically not pricing any of this stuff in because at this point I think most people who are investing, you know, not investing, trading basically like, yeah, well talk to me when it's close. And I think that's a large part of what we're seeing. And by the way, I think it's the same thing with GameStop today. And that's why people look at it and say, oh yeah, okay, well, 500 million a year, who cares about long term utility curves or any shit like that? What I care about is am I going to get liquidated on my 20 or 30x long and frankly, should they do that? No. But I think that is what's happening.
- [22:40]
Scott
Zillion. I can't hear. Zillion. I don't know about you guys but I'm hearing a strange echo. No, I can't. Yeah, jump down, Mark.
- [22:51]
Mark
Yeah, I, I love Dave. I haven't heard slow your role in a while and I, I think what you just said about, you know, don't slow your roll but don't expect this to happen in six months. That is the game of where the volatility will continue in our space. Because the shift, I think, I don't know, I'm a Mateo or someone else saying how we haven't appreciated the sea change between the Biden administration. What's happened in the first 60 plus days, it will take longer but we are, the markets are showing us more the 20 times levered trader than they are the builder right now. So I, I agree that the market's reflecting the immediate gains which are only provided by someone like GameStop versus the quiet building going on. And, and as an example, I'll point to 2023, when the SEC was going after Coinbase with, you know, the 12 tokens or securities they filed in June of like June 5th. And then on June 7th, BlackRock quietly filed the ETF. So they already had everything lined up. So a lot of these folks I think have, have led. Have business plans in place and they're ready to unleash them at the right time. And you know, BlackRock's saving of Coinbase by saying, great, we'll just unleash the ETF now faster than we want to because we don't agree with what the SEC is doing. But you're right, Dave. The roles are being slowed by the 20x folks right now because there's no momentum right now in the space.
- [24:32]
Scott
And you're requesting now. Sorry, we keep getting the glitch. But Zilian, it shows you as a speaker. Now if you want to jump up, if not, imitate, go. While he's connecting again, go ahead. Amateo.
- [24:43]
Mateo
Cool. Yeah, I mean, when the EO was signed, it mentioned 180 days in order to implement market structure. Bill, that actually brings us to July 22nd of this year. I just don't think that's that far out. I think rightfully, if people are skeptical that we'll actually have something significant, I mean, I think there's a trade there, but I do think that we'll get at least stablecoin legislation by that date. That's pretty clear. And how these things will operate, that's a mandate for this administration that's moving very quickly and doesn't show any signs of slowing progress. So I mean, if that's just right around the corner, which can show that, that this will be. That everyone's working quite behind the scenes to implement the technology. But two, then the legislation and all the regulatory stuff is ironed out, especially on stable coins, to implement it into the global market, which already occupies the majority of stablecoin transactions. It's not actually us.
- [25:51]
Scott
Zillion. Zillion. Is your mic working?
- [25:54]
Fred
Yeah. Can you guys hear me now? Sorry. Yeah, exactly. So I joined this point and I think this is not appreciated enough, especially from the investment community. I think that a lot of the stablecoin issuers that are going to, to. To want to be under this legislation regulated in the US Might be focusing on stablecoin products that are targeting international markets, other countries. Because a lot of the transaction, a lot of the transaction volume comes from there and a lot of the user base comes from there. So I think that this Bill, will attract a lot of venture firm, sorry, not venture firms, but rather builders or stablecoin companies that are focusing on certain regions or certain specific markets. And the obvious reason is well known. I mean, this is a way to kind of go around the capital controls in these places to tap into forex remittance and all this stuff. So, yeah, very, very interesting, Bill. I really look forward to see the impact and I think that. But right now, unfortunately, we don't see any deal flow or any kind of companies kind of gearing up to target regional and international markets from a currency, stable currency perspective.
- [27:20]
Scott
Fred, I have a question for you. Specifically, we saw news that the XRP had effectively settled with the sec, that that case had not been quote, unquote, dropped because the SEC was appealing. Right. I believe that's the, at least the semantics. And it sort of came out that there was rumor that they were looking to settle with a lower fine or with a different settlement. By the end, it seems like they kind of fell somewhere in the middle. I know you've probably been looking at this. What happened there?
- [27:52]
Amateo
Oh, well, I'm glad you asked. This was a huge win for the crypto industry and, you know, especially the XRP community that took the beating while Ripple was going through that basically now, not officially at an end, but we're probably 60 days away from it. And what happened is last week we heard the SEC was dropping their appeal of the parts of the case they lost, which not quite, but essentially is about retail sale and selling on exchanges. And then Ripple curiously kept their cross appeal, which was they were appealing the part they lost, which was to institutional players selling their xrp. And so it's kind of why did the SEC drop their appeal but not Ripple for nothing? And that's again, where you're seeing all these pieces of the sea change at the sec. Essentially what happened yesterday was the SEC said, all right, you drop your appeal and we'll reduce the fine. They reduced it by 60% from 125 million to 50. And what is so crazy there is, you know, aside from any facts of that case, that 125 million was just guaranteed money for the SEC and there were no investor losses in that case. So it was just going to the sec. And before Gary Gensler got booted out, Ripple had said, yeah, we'll pay all this money. Let's just nobody appeal and go forward. And, you know, I mean, so that money was on the table and the fact that the SEC just used the Quote, unquote, you drop your appeal will cut our fine. You know, to walk away just shows how much and how quickly they're going the other way. And what it does for Ripple is now, once this thing is finally signed and dotted and over with in. In what I think would be 60 days or less, the institutional sales are back on, you know, more of their ability to do other sales, other products, use their stable coin that's on xrp. They also have a stable coin on Ethereum, and, you know, they'll be able to. To blow up as well. And I mean, and that just goes obviously, for Ripple, but for every other company that the SEC has targeted. But, I mean, man, Ripple was one of the first. Although I do want to say we've all forgotten about Block 1 and EOS. They probably were the first to get tagged by the sec, but it didn't ever. They never recovered from it.
- [30:15]
Fred
Yeah, but sorry to interrupt here, but that was a complete different case. I mean, Block one never, which is. That's another transaction right there. I don't think Block 1 ever delivered on anything. They basically promised. Right. I mean, EOS was another technical issue, but whatever. But I mean, that was a complete other case. Right.
- [30:40]
Amateo
It definitely was way different than the Ripple case. But in a way, how they, you know, created the coin, I mean, that's probably where you could say the similarity. It's just when I was looking back through all the years of the crazy SEC cases, I was like, oh, I kind of Forgot about Block 1 and the way they just faded off into obscurity. But you're right, it was. It was very significantly different.
- [31:01]
Scott
They faded off into obscurity, though, with over 100,000 Bitcoin. Right?
- [31:07]
Fred
Yeah, exactly.
- [31:09]
Scott
150. I don't remember what the exact number is, but there were the largest holders on the planet of Bitcoin after, you know. So it didn't turn out too poorly?
- [31:20]
Fred
No, not at all.
- [31:21]
Amateo
No, it didn't. But, yeah, at the end of the day, you know, this was. The Ripple case, was the biggest case that the crypto case that the SEC had going and the farthest, you know, it's a lot easier to get rid of Coinbase and Kraken, and those cases were just so early stage. And again, the fact that outside of what you think about XRP and Ripple, the fact that the SEC had all this money on the table that they could have easily walked away with and said, no, we'll cut it down and walk away, is recognition of the new leadership that, hey, we really were pretty messed up. And you know, you know, we didn't give you guys any set of rules to follow. We recognize it, we're sorry. And it's a new age going forward. And I think the settling of that case because of the money that was involved is the exclamation point that it's a new day.
- [32:10]
Fred
Yeah, just a quick one. And I think also that they want. Their aim is to reestablish relationship with the builders in this space to basically tell them, don't be scared of us, come talk to us, come interact with us. And I think this is the coverage that is actually missing. I think they're doing all these great actions and they're showing to the market great signals. But I think the coverage from like a reporting standpoint is basically not reflecting this, not not rebuilding, helping them rebuild that trust. And I think this is a missing, missing link because many builders are still afraid of the sec.
- [32:48]
Scott
Seems like they're becoming less afraid. So we also have the US SEC concluding its investigation into Web3 gaming platform Mutable with no enforcement charges. Are there any of these even left outstanding? It seems like they've basically dropped every investigation that existed and the task force is basically pivoting to only looking at fraud, which is their job in the first place. It feels like the SEC is no longer a threat. We also had the news that the SEC will continue to have roundtables with the industry. It was either four or five more this year. So obviously we have a constructive relationship now with the sec. And unless I think you're doing something gratuitously wrong, it feels like most people's impression is that where all systems go in the United States at least to interact with them and see what's allowed. That said, we still do need more clear regulation on safe harbor, what is or is not a security and obviously clear legislation. But like, or two months into this thing, we've gotten more than I would have ever sort of imagined by this time. Amateur. You were throwing up the hundreds there. I mean, I know you agree, but it's hard to think that the SEC is threatening anyone in the crypto industry right now who's a good actor.
- [34:05]
Mateo
Yeah, I mentioned this yesterday, but I think that what we saw, because there was even the announcement that they're going to be dropping kind of broad enforcement actions. And I think the reality is they're going from a shotgun, very expensive style approach to a deeper prosecution of fraud bad actors. And I think we're going to see a lot of cleaning up around the industry as A result of this. So I think that what we're seeing is that it's a green light for good players trying to do the right thing, be able to do so, and then have some kind of grandfathering in once there is legislation, without having to deal with, like, some kind of unbelievable legal overhead that they're going to have to accommodate no matter what they do. But at the same time, I think that there is a deeper risk for people who want to come into this market and manipulate, take advantage. There will be consequences that are specific, that are sophisticated in a way that we just haven't seen before.
- [35:11]
Scott
Dave?
- [35:12]
Dave
Yeah, I think that the builder community is scarred sufficiently that it's going to take a while for reestablishment of trust. But I do think that that is underway. It's, once again, you know, it's the same theme thematically, similar to what I said before. I mean, these things take time. But what will happen is if there is a blueprint or if there is a, you know, statements from. And look, you know, Atkins is, I guess his hearing is tomorrow. Contents don't know when his theory, I mean, they both should sail through, Elizabeth Warren's nonsense notwithstanding. And so my guess is that you'll see something before the early summer, you know, in certain terms of, if not official guidance, in terms of the building community knowing what they can do, who they could talk to, and, you know, for example, you know, I'm kind of hemming and hawing over this, but understand that, like, the push towards governance tokens is a perfect example. What's a governance token? A governance token is a token that a builder wants to list to raise money that doesn't give economic rights to the holders, because under Howie, that would have been. It would have potentially tripped it. You'll start getting guidance or at least law firms willing to stick there, you know, write good letters for people that say, okay, here's what you can do and here's how it can do. Those are the signs that matter for the building community. If you're an actual builder and you're funded, you're going to be looking. People are going to be more interested. If you're planning to do sorts of things, those sorts of plans are going to start to come out. That's the sort of stuff that, when we talk about builders, we mean, just to be very clear, in terms of the investment side, look, there's. It's a mess right now because you have all these. You have exchanges, I mean, Coinbase, Kraken, now Robinhood, owning Pit Stamp, I Mean, you know, you have three very large ones in the United States who have arguably as sophisticated a vertically integrated model that is completely different than what you have in securities. And it's going to have to get resolved and there's going to be a lot of conversations about it. Trust me, the conversations are already happening. It's not like this stuff is, is, is not known by the people on the crypto task force. And I can't talk about it too much because I'm not going to give away any information inside, inside baseball. But they are very deeply looking at all of these issues right now in a way that if the community knew it, they would say, oh yeah, that's going to work out pretty well. I mean, and I'm not being sarcastic, in some things you can't tell and it's just voice. There really is a move inside the commission to try to understand and go back to a world where the first rule is do no harm. Right. Because that's important. I mean, Hester Paris had given a speech a few years ago, one of her most brilliant ones, where she talked about the Hippocratic oath of doing no harm. That is the philosophy that infuses this sec. And that is a massive difference between the way it used to be.
- [38:13]
Scott
Mark?
- [38:16]
Mark
Yeah, thanks, Scott. Dave, going back to your examination of how the SEC is going to, you know, drive or hinder, I think when we look at the, we started the conversation talking about, you know, the purchases by Kraken and about what's going to be the next driver. Will it be the 20x traders in, in Asia or is it going to be the banks in the U.S. and I think, I think one measure that I'm probably going to adopt after this call is what is expedient versus what is impactful. And like stable coins, I think we all agree is impactful because it impacts the banking system, the trillions of dollars of federal debt that can be absorbed or used as collateral, you know, very tremendously impactful, as well as the amount of people that are employed by banks who can maybe remain employed. So from that standpoint, huge impactful. But I guess for this crowd, I love us, Scott, if we could potentially put us all on the hook to say, by that 180 day deadline, by the executive order, I don't know who brought that up, Zillion or Amateo, what do we expect to have done? What do we expect to have impact the price, the what action will drive Bitcoin, Ethereum, the prices of the market by that 180 day will it be a resolution on a stablecoin act pass, which Dave, you said probably won't happen, or will it be wirehouses adopting Bitcoin, which obviously has the clearest path to regulatory approval as a, as a commodity by all the regulators. So I guess that's what I would say is what do we expect by 180 that July date to impact price?
- [39:59]
Dave
But before you go on anyone else, just let me answer what I the stablecoin bill. Look, until the markup of the House bill is this week, and if the House bill is similar to the Genius act, they're all called different things that could actually move along very expedition judiciously, but market structure is not going to get taken up until after that's done. And so that'll be definitely outside of the July time frame.
- [40:26]
Scott
If we're, if we're only speaking specifically about price, Mark, I think most of the catalysts we were looking for are well on their way. Like I don't know that those things are going to send price. I mean, Dave and I always joke the only good, the only best marketing for Bitcoin is higher prices on bitcoin. Right. And so I think we just need sort of a groundswell of price rise rising to get the FOMO kicking back in to some degree. But I don't think we got an executive order on a strategic Bitcoin reserve and price didn't move. Really. I can't imagine a bigger catalyst than that outside of just the market conditions improving and confidence increasing.
- [41:06]
Mark
Yeah, I agree. If you had the newspaper in the middle of last year for today, you would not expect 87,000 Bitcoin for sure.
- [41:18]
Scott
Yeah, I'm a tail.
- [41:21]
Mateo
Yeah, I think it's a great question, Mark. I'm not really sure, but we do have the DC Blockchain Summit today, so I just wanted to mention that. And there's a lot of big names including Hester Pierce and everyone else, Cynthia Loomis, etc. I don't know if there's anything that we should anticipate being new coming from this event. It's very possible. They do like to sandwich announcements with these events to build a lot of hype. For better or for worse. It's not really gone in the market favor even we've had good news. But I think what, what we will have as a result of today's event is an even deeper clarity on the narrative shift around digital assets and stablecoins as well as more prospective policy of what we can expect to happen. So I don't really know the answer to that, Mark. But I think that hopefully today actually brings a little bit more clarity towards that answer so that we can all kind of set our sights towards the end of that mandate.
- [42:21]
Scott
I mean, does anyone. Go ahead, Mark. Mark, you can go ahead. I saw you were jumping in.
- [42:29]
Mark
Yeah, I was just saying thanks for that. And I, you know, I just. As a former risk manager, you kind of look at what you think is going to happen and why it doesn't. And you, and you just say, is it a coiled spring? And you keep looking for, you know, for a catalyst that will bridge that gap from what Scott was saying about, you know, the executive order. Exactly. I mean a bitcoin, I'll never sell bitcoin by the largest financialized economy in the world is there, there can't be bigger news besides, you know, God and Allah himself coming down saying something. So the Digital Asset Summit would love to have, you know, some clarity on, on some things like you know, maybe what the, what Dave was saying about the House bill ceding control from a purely federally federal regulated entity having the ability to be a PPSI to maybe states as well. You know, those types of things falling would be great to see. But again, I think the near term will be industry a Wirehouse saying our 15,000 brokers are going to sell Bitcoin. That would be a home run.
- [43:33]
Scott
Although, I mean once again we had BlackRock saying that they will be adding their ETFs to a number of their funds recommending 1 to 3% exposure. We saw quietly news from Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan over the past four or five months and it hasn't really moved it. I think we're just in this environment now where news is passe because we've seen so much good news that it's very hard for anything to be massively impactful. Does anybody, I mean Mark, do you. I, I can't. I think one of those things would be impactful. But the news everyone was watching for once again, that was the oh, straight to 120 was an SBR. Maybe if we get Lummis's legislation, I think that would send it flying for a strategic bitcoin reserve or the United.
- [44:20]
Mark
States actively buying us buying would be huge. But that would be stupid. Hopefully we don't advertise that, but if you're stacking like most people on this call, it would be nice. The blackrock news is absolutely bedeviling. I have no idea how a captive 150 billion dollar pool of capital announces 1 to 2% allocation. And it was freaking crickets. The the only thing I guess Scott on that I would say is we underestimate how large the pool of capital is away from blackrock. I had a meeting yesterday with a wealth manager and and the only person they've had on a webinar was a anti crypto person in the last 12 months to engage why they're not involved so that's my only thing is we underestimate how big the wirehouses are even though they've had as you said productive conversations and sentiment shifts it the the the green light's not on for unsolicited engagement.
- [45:29]
Scott
Absolutely agree guys I have another commitment going to go ahead and move to wrap yet again. Another great panel Dave. You're going to be hosting tomorrow, right? While I'm while I'm absent last time for a while I promise.
- [45:40]
Dave
Don't make promises you can't keep Scott.
- [45:44]
Amateo
I know.
- [45:45]
Scott
Well well you know if only the that guy whose co host pictures up next to me would show up every once in a while or maybe that other Rand nooner guy you know who's who's pictures there but to be honest you're better than all of us so looking forward to listening to the show back tomorrow after you host everybody give everyone on stage a follow Otherwise see you tomorrow for crypto Town hall later.