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- [00:01]
Scott Melker
Hey everybody.
- [00:02]
Dave Weisberger
Welcome to Crypto Town Hall. Today is Wednesday, May 14th. This show is every single weekday here on X at 10:15am Eastern Standard Time. Crypto Town hall is hosted by myself, the ghosts of Mario Nofel and Rand Nooner, who is literally a ghost so much that his avatar needs a ghost because it's not even here. And of course actually co hosted by Dave Weisberger who's here. It's becoming more official by the, by the minute and I'm leaving a bit early today. So Dave will be taking over title today. Trump backed crypto says US leads China. Those are in comments this morning. Obviously just echoing things that he said before. But always nice to hear the President doubling down on his support of crypto and the view obviously that it is fundamental in beating China on a technological level. The other kind of bigger news stories that we have today are Etoro going public at a higher valuation than many anticipated, which I think is big. Obviously we had the robinhood acquisition of WonderFi yesterday leading into Canada with a crypto acquisition acquisition Coinbase hitting the S and P this week. Lots of huge institutional news. Another one being that Cantor Equity Partners, which is the obviously the partnership between Jack Mahler SoftBank Cantor to buy bitcoin, they made their first big public purchase, $458.7 million in Bitcoin. So a lot happening on the institutional front. I see we've got Matt Siegel in the audience who I just had the pleasure of speaking to on YouTube. Matt, you guys also have some big institutional news this week and specifically today. Make sure we got everyone's mics working. Matt, can you hear me opinion privately and see we can start digging into these other topics for the moment. The Etoro, Etoro going public is a pretty big story. I think that they raised at 6, I think they issued 6 million shares at 52 per share. And when I saw this being looked at in the first place, I, I thought they were aiming at 45. So pretty big news here following the Coinbase and Robinhood news, as I mentioned. I mean dav, maybe we'll start here. I mean this is just another example of what's coming, right? I mean, just more tradfi access to crypto.
- [02:37]
Mike McGlone
I mean look, it's very, very clear that there is a market that is developing. You know, what people need to remember is the private accounts, the pa, you know, private accounts of people on Wall street have been moving into crypto fairly stealthily but you know, you know, obviously for years. So when I talk to people in Tradfi which happens quite often. You know, you get this kind of. Yeah, you know, I have it personally, but the firm doesn't really want to. Doesn't really want to do anything. That was last year. This year it's. Yeah, we're. We're working on it. And effectively, what, what needs to be said is they need the starter's flag, the starter's pistol to say yes for the race. I mean, they're doing the kind of prelapse right now, but until there is clarity and it's actually official, the compliance departments don't let them do things. So they're making announcements. One of the reasons the announcements are we're going to have crypto trading in 12 months, which was, you know, effectively Schwab and E Trade, is because they expect that within the 12 months there will be that regulatory clarity and it'll be there. And it's pretty clear that that's actually happening. I mean, the one person on stage. I hope Matthew can talk, but if Matthew can't. Bruce, you've been posting from, you know. Oh, well, Matthew can, because. I see. Can you hear us now?
- [03:58]
Matt Siegel
Yeah, I'm in now. Thanks, guys.
- [04:00]
Mike McGlone
So we'll go, but Mr. Fenton, I think that you're witnessing some historic things over there. I'd love to hear from that too, but we'll get to that later.
- [04:08]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, we'll definitely go there. Matt, welcome to the glitch, AKA crypto town hall and spaces, where every time we try to go to a speaker for the first time, it doesn't work. So you are the victim of that today. But as I said, you and I kind of chatted on YouTube and VanEck have a few things happening, obviously. Launched today, roughly an hour ago, Node. So maybe you can just break that down for us because I think it aligns very well with this sort of institutional adoption topic we're on.
- [04:36]
Matt Siegel
Yeah. Good to be back with you all. You may have noticed we've been kind of slower out of the gate in 2025 with new products. We've been encouraged by the performance of some of our active strategies. So in terms of single token ETPs, we've only filed this year for Binance and Avax, preferring to focus on tokenized strategies, where we launched VBill, VanEck's first tokenized money market fund yesterday. And then today is the launch of Node, which is the Vaneck on Chain Economy etf. So I'll just spend a couple minutes introducing what we're trying to achieve here. I've spoken to so many tradfi investors who want some exposure to crypto via equities, but are understandably spooked by portfolios full of pure play miners exchanges that have seen repeated blowups and bankruptcies. So what we're trying to do here is an actively managed ETF that can hold global crypto ETPs up to a 25% weight alongside companies that have credible strategies to make money or to save money by using bitcoin digital assets and integrating with the on chain economy. So what we're trying to solve is to manage the downside volatility without losing exposure to some of the underlying growth drivers. And when you look at the pure play stocks, they trade at two or even three times the volatility of bitcoin itself because of leverage small market cap idiosyncratic business models. And our historical data shows that adding Bitcoin to these high volume stocks has improved the return and reduced the portfolio risk. So in this fund we'll typically hold a core position in a regulated Bitcoin ETF like our own and then allow the rest of the portfolio to focus on compounding and cash flow and complementing the higher volatility pure plays like the miners exchanges balance sheet hodlers. We're going to introduce lower volatility sectors like E commerce, semiconductors, energy infrastructure, utilities. And every stock will be selected based on measurable involvement in the on chain economy. I just want to spend a minute on those latter sectors. The utilities, the energy companies, they offer something critical here which is ballast. These names tend to pay dividends, they're less volatile and they can serve as these risk managing building blocks that we can use in periods of stress, jettison that ballast and take on more risk when a washout occurs. The utilities in particular are starting to benefit from some of the same structural tailwinds that support bitcoin adoption, notably pro growth policies here in the US More abundant energy. A rethinking of the connection between energy, power, money and we think that combining these exposures could offer an appealing balance of offense and defense. So in the initial holdings which are on our website you'll see companies across all 11 GICS sectors. Everyone is engaging with the on chain economy in some way and we think this broad opportunity set it's really the maybe the first time that you can see truly diversified exposure in a crypto geared etf. So for those of you out there who see the opportunity but want to maintain conviction through the cycle, hopefully this approach to portfolio construction resonates and look forward to feedback. Any questions and hopefully your support.
- [08:42]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, so I'm reading about the node release here. It says you'll aim to hold 30 to 60 names, but there's 130/stock universe tied to the digital asset economy. That seems obviously like you're going further down the curve here because that seems like a lot like I would be hard pressed to name 130 stocks that I think are adjacent to the digital asset economy.
- [09:08]
Matt Siegel
It's amazing how fast the universe has grown just in the last couple quarters. So we're screening for SEC filings, conference calls, investor presentations, and now, especially with the intersection of AI and Bitcoin, there really is an increase in the number of companies that are calling out blockchain, crypto, digital assets, Bitcoin as an attractive end market that they're looking to address, it may not show up in the company filings right away because a lot of times these companies are in investment mode or the digital assets end market is in their view, not material yet to the profits. But if we take this wider view as to companies that can maybe profit from saving money from the on chain economy by lowering, for example, their payments costs, that's how you end up with this wider investable universe of 130 names we're going to look to own. Call it 30 to 60. We're starting a bit north of that to try to concentrate our conviction as the markets evolve. But you'll see a big allocation to a Bitcoin ETF. You'll see a handful of 3 to 4% positions and then a lot of 1% positions that I'm hoping are going to provide meaningful diversification with upside to the eventual growth drivers.
- [10:34]
Dave Weisberger
So just a little bit more into this because the first time I've heard of energy stocks sort of being added, I know that when we talked about it before, you said that they had to at least have mentioned digital assets or it has to be in their calls. This thing, it's not random, right? But. And you talked about this being a ballast, but are there specific ones that you look at more deeply? Is it all utilities? How do you kind of choose through those, what to add to this portfolio and how heavily weighted?
- [11:03]
Matt Siegel
Yeah, great question. So one of the things we have going for us is that Vaneck is running a number of actively managed natural resources strategies. So we have a team here that covers these stocks. And as we surface companies that call out crypto, bitcoin, blockchain, digital assets in their conference calls, we're working with our analysts on the energy side to try to identify where we can find that intersection of attractive risk reward, some integration with the on chain economy, and then trying to deliver that overall lower volatility approach to the space. So if you look through the holdings, you'll see a number of these lower volatility utility stocks at kind of the 1 to 2% weightings. And the larger ones either have, we think, a better risk reward or a more aggressive strategy to sell energy and electricity into bitcoin miners.
- [12:05]
Dave Weisberger
Really, really interesting. Matteo, I saw your hand go up. If you have a question for Matt, go ahead.
- [12:11]
Scott Melker
I do, yeah. So, you know, with these energy companies kind of plugging into the bitcoin grid, there, there's the element of maybe them mentioning it or exploring it. I was just wondering how you're sort of seeing that trend and how much do you expect to see that change over the next several years? Because it seems like there's quite a bit of exposure on the energy side. It seems like there's really something to this because I think when we look at it, we just don't think it's that extensive. So I just wanted to see how you were evaluating that and what you guys are seeing from your perspective.
- [12:47]
Matt Siegel
Yeah, like one of the themes that we've been writing a lot about is adoption of bitcoin at the sovereign level. So the number of countries that are mining bitcoin with government resources is now eight different countries. And some of those countries don't have particularly interesting or attractive electricity prices. And so they're doing it with state owned companies or they're encouraging their private energy companies to sell into bitcoin miners. Argentina would be a good example of this where the state owned energy company YPF has a number of subscribers, subsidiaries, and they've disclosed that one of them is selling energy into the bitcoin mining space. And you can look at the conference calls of the, some of the publicly traded bitcoin miners and get a read on some of their activities in Argentina. You know, we've spoken to YPF about their bitcoin mining plans and they're open to broadening their exposure in the future. So that's an example of the type of a name that we might own at say, you know, 1% weight, where their exposure may, may grow over time. Some of the nuclear value chain, both of the largest small modular reactor companies have called out bitcoin as a trial end market and an end market that they're looking to address. So you'll see some small positions in those names as well. I think it goes back to the, the overarching theme for this Asset class and something that frankly, the President mentions. You'll rarely hear Trump and the White House mention bitcoin in isolation. They often mention it in conjunction with AI and with energy infrastructure. And the reality is if the right policies are in place, then the US will become dominant in all three of those sectors, AI, bitcoin and energy infrastructure simultaneously. And we want to try to benefit from that.
- [15:04]
Dave Weisberger
Matteo, does that answer your question?
- [15:07]
Scott Melker
Yeah, really fascinating. I love the insight and I love the development of nuclear powered Bitcoin, especially with these small bitcoin reactor or small, small nuclear reactors that we know are going to be essential to, to actually be a leader in AI. So very fascinating. Matt, thank you for sharing.
- [15:27]
Dave Weisberger
Matthew. I, I know we want to be respectful of your time. You guys also have Vbill launching and I don't know if there's anything else. Dig in more on Node.
- [15:37]
Matt Siegel
Yeah, just on Vivill, our first tokenized treasury fund. There's a number of competitors in the space but we saw real customer demand to launch this product. You'll see a number of seeding partners announced over the next several days and weeks. Importantly, Investors can swap VBill into stablecoins like Agora AuSD, which we're backing. Investors can mint VBill24.7 using USDC VBIL tokens can be freely traded among approved wallets. And we think that on the institutional side, market makers, exchanges who want to settle their accounts on the weekend and convert between Fiat and a yield bearing stablecoin are going to find utility from this fund. So look forward to sharing more details about that and sharing progress as we, as we go along.
- [16:44]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, and as we sort of pivot here, I would love your general broad strokes before you run on where we're at with the market here. Obviously we've had, we talked about it a bit earlier but we've had this kind of huge move obviously on Bitcoin to the upside, sort of getting ready to test the all time highs. But obviously we've finally seen some serious movement from, from altcoins which kind of indicates that we're in a more of a risk on atmosphere.
- [17:10]
Matt Siegel
Yeah, it has been a big move up. We're still bullish here, pretty much fully deployed across our, even our more tactical crypto strategies. Some of the tactical indicators that we keep an eye on that were flashing yellow if not red in December and prompted us to de risk a little bit. We're still seeing green lights there on funding rates or on the unrealized profits on Bitcoin. So relatively optimistic here going forward. I think the change in narrative around eth, some of the leadership changes, the success of the fork and just underweight short covering are helping with a broader based rally. But the real big story here is equity capital markets wide open. Sorry to bring it back to node. Corporates have taken the mantle from ETFs as probably the biggest driver of bitcoin price over the last few weeks and it's really fun to watch a lot of this capital formation happening in equities. So we did participate in the David Bailey Company in one of our private strategies and there's now three Solana based public companies that are exercising their balance sheets in a meaningful way. Talks of an ETH strategy. So I think if the equity markets can remain open it's strong tailwinds for crypto digital assets. Bitcoin, Perfect.
- [18:50]
Dave Weisberger
Love it. I mean Mike got you here. Let's talk more about the market because I know that you've got your probably strong thoughts on where we're at with that. And then Dave, I'll let you chat to Bruce.
- [19:04]
Bruce Fenton
I think one key difference from Matt and I is similar inklings. Last year the crowd effect was getting extreme. We know 60 Vix was a reason to buy everything but now we're 18 Vix and the stock market's back up on the year and everybody thinks it's over, the crisis is over. Thing I've been seeing in the blue, I look at it as it's stick with the bigger picture that this is a potential recession heading us and you have to remember that virtually everything has same chart syndrome. Everything went down together. Bond yields, crypto assets, bitcoin, stock market. Actually bitcoin kind of led the way in Q1 now everything's going back up together. So to me that's the key thing. We have pretty significant crowd effect in cryptos, a great leading indicator. But I look on a year over year basis certainly in this year gold's still up 20% yet it's backing up today and bitcoin's 10% gold is still winning and I fully expect if the stock market rolls over, which I think this is like the first. Yeah, I mean people willing to test shorts here. We do have a gap in the S P500 weekly chart very similar to the gap down Q1 2020 that we got to save up these levels. Otherwise I think it rolls over. Back to all that data we were worried about in that, you know the things that started dropping in April, the data is going to start coming out to potentially tomorrow with retail sales and we're Going to see I think what's really happening seen from the inter workings of the market certainly with gold taken off and going crude oil collapsing that on a global basis we're heading pretty pretty significant recession. They're still facing serious tariffs from the US a big paradigm shift and now the US stock market's bounced unchanged on the year. So I think by the end of the year I think it's much more likely to be a down year for US equities which means down for highly speculative digital assets. And good news is Bitcoin's been doing really well. But if I'm right about that then everything goes lower in even bond yields. The key thing is by the end of the year if we're up say 10% in S&P 500, that's great, that's wonderful. The thing is it's already stretched the highest in 100 years versus GDP and the rest of the world. That's I'm really worried about that. This is just a short term opium and we got back to unchanged on a year and bear markets are supposed to make it difficult. So got to see proof of it staying higher from here. But the bottom line is for certainly from bitcoin and cryptos we've pointed this out. It's sometimes it's digital gold and I think it's sometimes to be overweight and sometimes it's leveraged beta and it's time to be underweight. I think there's still a leveraged beta time. It's time to be underweight. Bitcoin versus gold and so far the performance this year is proving it. Gold still way outperforming bitcoin.
- [21:42]
Mike McGlone
Hard disagree on pretty much all of that with one slight exception. I do think the that there is a very real chance of a risk fraught third to you know, basically fall in stocks as depending on corporate earnings are they really going to get impacted or not? And that's going to be the driver there. I think that the 200% market cap to GDP is extremely troubling. What you've seen is the transformation of stock investing from buying discounted cash flows based upon stable businesses to buying stories of what's going to develop into the Future. I mean Nvidia, Apple, etc. You know, trade at much higher pes, much higher etc. Than when the index was constructed out of oil companies, utilities when finance was only 10% and tech was a small piece. And so it's a bit higher than it probably should be and it does make me nervous but absolutely none of that has a damn thing to do with bitcoin in the long run. In the short run, car, you know, things are, are what they are. And I think it's extremely interesting how people ignore adoption statistics and how whether it's the President of the United States claiming that Bitcoin is 80% undervalued or most of the people buying it thinking it's 90% undervalued, looking at that different than gold, which has been around for 5,000 years. The other point is when the market has a much higher percentage of it based upon evolving technologies. Evolving technologies are always volatile. But if you look at the history of the Internet, why do we believe the history of AI will be any different? Now AI has its own issues. But I think that, you know, it's really hard. Sorry I'm getting the co host thing up because Scott had to leave, but you guys don't want to listen to me talk and there's a lot of current events going on. So I mean I saw one hand go up but I'm not sure that, that, that I, I know who it was and it was me. I just wanted to ask Mike when it comes to the tariffs, because when I speak to macro, guys have all kind of got the same outlook as, as Mike, but they put a lot of emphasis on these tariffs and like how bad they're going to be for, for the markets. But like would you change your outlook if these tariffs just turned out to be like a bit of a nothing burger?
- [24:21]
Bruce Fenton
Well, I'm looking for signals for that and I appreciate the question because the thing about being a nothing burger is very unlikely as we mentioned, when these things. This is 100 year high in tariffs from the US coming at a time where we have basically century 100 year highs in US valuations. Depends how you measure it. How about versus the rest of the world, let's keep that simple. Versus GDP. Rest of the world, you've never been this high versus stock market cap. The key thing about that is that's a pretty substantial statement to go backwards on because this is something that Trump talked about. Tariffs in this country is the main reason that a local company, a US Company would shut down a plant in the US and put Americans out of work is for one reason on and one reason only profits. When you can offshore and get cheap stuff from China, you're, you're willing to do that very un political thing, politically incorrect thing and fire Americans. That's what's happened. Those profits Dave mentioned. And that's one thing we see a Bear market profits have been good from Q1. That's great. But all our estimates are, and certainly from our Bloomberg Economics and Bloomberg Intelligence team is profits are heading to more of a bear market. So that's the key thing to remember is tariffs were the good reason. I mean what was considered, you know, the billy for no tariffs before in the US could offshore and get stuff cheap was wonderful for profits. Now we're doing the exact opposite. The key thing is also let's remember the macro big picture here. The Fed can't ease anymore partly because risk assets rallied so much, created so much inflation and they're pointing out their inflation expectations high. So the Fed easing is out of the picture. We just saw that rately the market went up, Fed easing comes out of the picture. At the same time we're getting austerity. Remember, pretty significant deficit spending in the US has helped boost all risk assets, most notably the stock market that's being shut off. To me this is a classic indication and we just had this nice little dip in the market. It was really quick enough and backed unchanged on the year, which is wonderful. But I, if I can look back at this year from the end and say the stock market in US was just fine, it didn't drop 10%, that would probably be a, that's a paradigm shift. Otherwise to me, this is something that's just way overdue for normalization. And I'll end with this. That's the key thing is. And we have massive crowd effect. I just had a good friend of mine, Patricia Elbis stopped by and she wrote the Theory de Dao in French. And it's never forget the crowd effect. You're all in this. You all know this is a pretty significant headline crowd effect about how wonderful cryptos are. And I just point out the 16 quarter correlation of Bitcoin to the S&P 500 at 0.66 is the highest in over 10 years. It's just what matters to me is cryptos will be fine as long as US stock market goes up.
- [26:55]
Mike McGlone
Yeah, we talk about this all the time. I've actually, in fact I think it's, I'm going to defer, you know, because Bruce, you're here. I mean, is your mic working?
- [27:05]
Gary
I believe so.
- [27:06]
Mike McGlone
Awesome. So I think that considering a lot of this, a lot of the conversations are about what is Trump doing, what's going the world. I think that you've seen some pretty interesting stuff and obviously you're part of our community, so how would you sum up what you've seen? Over the last, basically over the yesterday for the crypto industry and what does it signal for World Trade, etc. Etc.
- [27:30]
Gary
Yeah, I'm here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and President Trump was just here. He just left a little while ago, a couple hours ago. So yesterday I was, was fortunate enough to be a delegate to one of, one of the President's United States delegates to the Saudi US Investment Forum, which was great. It was, you know, it was a lot of serious folks, you know, His Royal Highness Mohammed bin Salman, President Trump, Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hegseth, you know, pretty much the, the entire who's who of Saudi cabinet and business leaders. Elon was here, David Sachs, you know, our crypto czar. And yeah, it was great. I mean, some have called it the most influential, important speech of the last quarter century. You know, he really ended kind of the neocon military industrial complex sort of, sort of thinking. You know, those who, who remember way back over eight years ago when, when Trump was running in the, in the first presidential primary, he was one of the only Republicans who was against this. You know, Republican Party used to be characterized by kind of a pro war, you know, pro violence in the Middle east, sort of, you know, fair failed foreign policy of military misadventures. And Trump never liked that. And, you know, even, even those who are his critics should recognize that during his last term, he was quite peaceful. You know, he's always, you know, been very pro peace. I heard that first time he had to go see the funerals of soldiers. It was very troubling for him. And he's placed a high priority on that piece. And I think where it comes to affect us and our industry and the economy is his focus of pivoting away from bombs and bullets to handshakes and agreements and prosperity. And that fits very well with what Mohammed bin Salman is doing in Saudi Arabia, which is a lot of reforms, a lot of, you know, I'm a free market libertarian, so I love to see the reduction in regulations, the, you know, human rights reforms, women's rights reforms, business reforms, visa reforms. Everything is easier here. And the, the attitude is very positive. You know, the people love it. They're very, you know, proud of their nation, proud of their leadership, and, you know, you know, they're not losing their cultural identity or their national identity. So sort of these two things together, you know, this bold vision of President Trump, the bold vision of, of Mohammed bin Salman and the region, I mean, that, that's a win, win for everybody, and it's a win, win for the world, you know, these military misadventures that we've had for 30 years are just an absolute disaster. And everybody, regardless of whether you're Republican or Democrat, you should be glad to see these, you know, this sort of era ending. You know, I'm a big believer that business is the way to peace. You know, you shake hands. I mean, that's why I'm here, you know, because a long time ago I came to this part of the world and, and there was a lot of misconceptions at many different periods in time. And sort of shaking hands and becoming business partners is one of the greatest ways to build a friendship. If people are making money and their careers and businesses depend on it, I mean, that's a win, win for everybody and completely incomparable to the cycle of violence and damage that we cause. So it's very, very good for us. It's good for the United States. You know, clearly good for crypto and bitcoin. You know, here in Saudi Arabia, things are very top down. You know, if the government, especially Mohammed bin Salman or the king, you know, royal court, the ministers put push something down like, hey, we believe in this, you know, that's powerful. And they clearly have made the biggest statement of, you know, pro America that they, you know, all kinds of protocol things with how he was greeted and you know, you know, they've got a carpet which is usually royalty carpet. You know, Muhammad bin Salman went and met him at the airport. You know, there's a very plus, it's, you know, really written in an agreement, $600 billion in investment. So there's a very, very, very strong signal from the top down like America's open for business. This is our number one economic ally and partner again. And part of that is the crypto agenda. Everybody knows that President Trump is pro bitcoin and pro crypto. And I, you know, Saudi Arabia has been a little bit behind other countries in the world and even the region, you know, UAE particularly, who's quite far ahead. So I think that that will, you know, David Sachs was here. You know, they're very much aware. You know, I think the attitude will be hopefully, well, you know, if Trump likes this, let's, let's, let's get involved. So I, you know, I think that we'll see some more investment and more cooperation here. So, you know, very exciting. I think it's something that all Americans should be proud of and I think all people who love peace and love the world should be happy for.
- [32:30]
Mike McGlone
Cool, thanks. I mean, part of the reason I, I asked you, and I'm curious because people in that organization, in that group are going to be talking about it is the, the question of tariffs and global trade and global recession caused by the US Trying to of pull back from the global economy. I mean, I'm exceedingly skeptical of that narrative. And, you know, people call me permeable, and that's probably not true. But I think in this particular case, you know, we could talk about the execution of how they've gotten to where we are, but it doesn't feel like we are in that, on that trajectory anymore. I was just curious. Any. Anybody talking about any of that?
- [33:09]
Gary
Yeah, I mean, there wasn't much talk about the tariffs. It was very, very positive, overwhelmingly. I mean, personally, I thought that the tariffs was always a nothing burger. You know, you have a lot of armchair quarterbacks who went on Wikipedia for 10 minutes and suddenly became experts on tariffs. These are exactly the same people who said that, you know, Elon doesn't know how to run Twitter. It's very highly technical. You know, these are clowns. These are people who don't understand the world. They don't understand reality. They don't understand what's going on. They, they. You can't learn anything from them that you can't learn from watching television. And, you know, you're talking about a. And this is an interesting thing. You know, there's. There's a thing called compet in the world. You know, Elon is a competent person. Donald Trump, whether you like him or not, is a competent person. You don't make billions of dollars in New York City real estate by being incompetent. And we are in this world where suddenly, you know, these voices of, of complete buffoons who work for the media or bloggers or random people who've never accomplished anything in their life, or maybe they have some silly credential from, you know, the World Economic Forum or Harvard or something like this. There's this idea that, you know, these people are suddenly as knowledgeable or as competent as Elon Musk. And we saw that, you know, when Elon bought Twitter, remember all the articles saying, like, he's not going to know how to run Twitter. It's highly complex. And they were all, like, guffawing and laughing about how, you know, people left and people were fired. They just don't know what they're talking about. And they're so incompetent that they don't even know that they're incompetent. So here are these people Monday morning quarterbacking who never even heard of Atarif, who can't point to any of these countries on a map up second guessing one of the greatest negotiators in the world. You know, a guy who wrote the Art of the Deal. You know, like, I get that a lot of people hate him and they have derangement about that hatred, but facts are facts. Like, he, if you read his early books, Art of the Deal and stuff, there's all kinds of, like real examples where he does real negotiating. You know, that's not something that you can learn by reading some pithy Facebook posts from a Trump hater. You know, you have to have, even if you hate him, you have to understand that he does understand negotiating. He's a very, very good negotiator. And I have some faith in that. You know, I have some faith that that's part of his plan with the tariffs, that, you know, he, you know, kind of knows what he's doing on this stuff. And I think that, you know, many times when you have restructuring in a business or I suppose, government, you, you know, you have a little bit of pain, you rip the band aid off. You know, these things need to be judged not on a week or a month, but on a year or two years. And I think that a couple years from now, the US markets, including Bitcoin and the stock markets, are going to be in great shape. And I think the world is going to be in great shape. A more peaceful and more prosperous place.
- [35:49]
Mike McGlone
Well, that's the, that's the optimist view. Anyone want to take the other side? I mean, I'm closer to Bruce's view than I am most, Whatever I'll take.
- [35:57]
Matteo
I'll take the other side. Just, just to say that Tony Schwartz wrote the Art of the Deal. He's an investor of mine, so I know him really well. Trump did not write the Art of the Deal. I don't know if you can go ahead and give him all the acclaim of all the, you know, of everything that you want to. It doesn't really matter to me. The art, frankly, doesn't matter to me. The deal matters to me and it seems that the deal are getting done. So on, on that side, like you, Dave, you know, I, I tend to bend towards Bruce, but I, you know, I don't think to go back to Mike McGlone's points earlier. You know, I, I, I think right now the market is certainly in reprieve. And when I say market, sorry, I mean equity markets in reprieve from everything that, you know, is going on with tariffs, because right now, you know, that is not the fixation of the market. The market has something else to fixate upon. You know, you know, announcing multibillion 100 billion, hundreds of billion dollar deals for Boeing, you know, certainly takes the, you know, the focus off of, well, how does this tariff thing end? And to Mike's point, what does it mean for fundamental profitability of businesses in the United States? Right. If you're a general equity investor, you've got to be concerned about that longer term. For things that require picks and shovels, it's certainly going to be more expensive, technology less so. I think the tech firms are out in front on this. They've been laying off employees. They have been, you know, migrating very quickly towards AI so that their efficiencies go up and so that their profitability hangs around. Plus, by the way, they also happen to be incredible beneficiaries if they're part of Trump's entourage that is traveling around with him in the Middle east and also signing up deals there as well. But for a lot of companies in the United States, especially ones that have no international reach and which import a lot of either their, you know, a lot of their inputs or even the finished product, when we're done with tariffs, their, their businesses are going to be a lot less profitable. Oh, and by the way, you know, I, I think it has to be that inflation is going to, you know, rise a little bit. I, I, I do think, by the way, at this point, I, I, you know, I, I am definitely, you know, a dove generally. I, I'm sorry, I'm definitely a hawk generally. But when it comes to the Fed right now, you know, I, I, I think that the Fed really should be thinking about cutting, at least starting to cut, so that it can show the market that, you know, that we're going to the United States is going to lean into all the progress that Trump is making abroad. Right. That we can figure out a way to, at the same time, you know, shrink our economy. Because that's clearly what's going to happen when it comes to tariffs domestically. But at the same time, you know, we're going to go ahead and expand internationally with some these deals and we're going to reach escape velocity. That's going to help us, you know, power beyond what's, you know, the strength of the dollar. That's really hurting the United States. I think all of that kind of has to come together. It's really, that's a really hard piece of art to go ahead and assemble. But that's really what we're trying to do here. It's going to take a bunch of time. It's not going to happen overnight. It's not going to happen on a trip to the Middle East. But. But I expect that that's what the artwork of this entire process is going to be hopefully coming together by the end of the year.
- [39:56]
Mike McGlone
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot there. The question from a crypto perspective, though, really boils down to two things. And I always separate bitcoin separate from the rest of crypto. The bitcoin story is bitcoin feels like it's a coiling spring again. Now, last year in the summer, we had eight months of said spring coiling with a wider range, but still in a range. Now we're in a tight range and it's been that way for a couple of weeks. So it's pretty early to tell, but, you know, we'll see how that goes. The vast majority of people and all the data that's coming out that far.
- [40:35]
Matteo
By the way, the coil. The coiling now, Dave, is a very, I think, a different coiling that's going on. Right. We are getting, you know, real new players into bitcoin and into the crypto sector generally. I don't think the market is paying enough attention because that's real demand. That's also new demand. The M and A activity that's going on. The emphasis that it. That is on the sector by foreign states, the emphasis that's on the sector, you know, by. By states within the United States for a strategic bitcoin reserve. There is a lot, you know, at play right now. I think the coiling is. Is. Is really, you know, substantive. And to. To that I say, you know, with respect to, you know, Maglone's points about gold, I mean, we're just in. We're just in the middle of the process, I think, think, you know, and not too, you know, far in the future. Maybe a couple months, you know, you're going to see bitcoin flip gold and then, you know, we'll have a conversation again about this because, you know, I think the strength in bitcoin is going to outstrip gold.
- [41:50]
Mike McGlone
I don't think you meant bitcoin to flip gold and the fact that it would have to, you know, 10x in a couple of months.
- [41:55]
Matteo
No, no, I didn't mean in terms. I didn't mean in terms of value. I meant in terms of strength relative to the S and P. Right, right, right, right.
- [42:02]
Mike McGlone
Yeah. I mean, look, I Think bitcoin will flip gold. I'm not going to lie. I just don't think it's going to happen in the next couple of months. But, you know, that's, that's the interesting. And the other thing that people, you know, every time you get these, you know, when you see a market top, market tops don't look like this. Market tops have intense speculation and huge FOMO going on. And there's none, I mean, anybody here seeing any of that in, in your businesses? The, the, the, the only thing we're seeing is the start of M and A. But FOMO will be when someone comes to, you know, you know, Ian and I and say, hey, you know, we want to Pay, you know, 2030x, you know, revenues for coin routes. Yeah, that'll be FOMO and I'll be happy about that. So, you know, whatever. But, but believe me that, those, those calls aren't being made now, people. All the M and A being done are at a fraction of the valuations that were being paid in 2021. And so, yes, it's starting, there's no question about that. And smart people are going to try to get ahead of it, but the reality is that we're not close to there yet. Anybody else seeing anything differently? Gary, you're usually good, good for a quote. What do you think? Nope. No speaker. It's hard because I can't, I can't tell who are speakers very well. I mean, I saw, I see David, you know, as a listener, so I can't tell who's really up here or not. Because, you know, Elon may do a great job of running a lot of things, but, you know, X is still glitchy. There's no two ways about that.
- [43:45]
Gary
It does need some work. I always am reserved.
- [43:52]
Mike McGlone
Whoops.
- [43:53]
Gary
Natural instincts to talk forever. I, I, I, I'm sure I hold the record of anybody in this channel of. I spoke once for a stunt when I was running for office. I spoke for 33 hours straight. So, so it's, it's, it's not, it's not due to lack of love. It's due to humility in, in hearing from people smarter than me.
- [44:12]
Scott Melker
Bruce, I'm sure someone's wife has you beat.
- [44:18]
Mike McGlone
Yeah, I'll admit that I can't, I don't have that duration, but I certainly can do the rate of speed, the rate that's faster than anybody else up here, but that's just, you know, a stupid parlor trick. Anyway, so, you know, we're, we're at 1103, there's, there's a lot of other topics. The. If Austin Campbell were up here I would and I would highly recommend people reading. He wrote a paper earlier this week. You know, you can find it, it's, you know, on a variety of posts but basically what it's talking about is how, you know, tokenization and why does it make sense. And really, really, you know, just dissected the dumb arguments against it from people who think that you need to have a clearing or a transfer agent and the web of stupid shit that's going on is there. And I say that because the chair of the sec, Paul Atkins completely agrees with his point of view. And so you know, when you start seeing and you know today's announcement that JP Morgan used Ondo, you know, and not instead of their own private blockchain to do tokenized treasuries and you heard from Matthew that they're doing tokenized treasuries. What I don't think is well understood and we know that the stablecoin bill will help this but just imagine a world where every broker, NEO bank etc can offer real yields at the same time as being able to offer and facilitate payments. And so all of a sudden the banking model gets flipped and that's happening whether or not they legislate or not. But it's one of the reasons people get very excited about what's going on in the space.
- [46:01]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I'll just jump in. I think it's actually happening, Dave. The securities and equities are coming on chain and the players who we anticipated would be actually powering this are. I think there was a real regulatory hurdle due to Operation Chokepoint and the entire Biden administration that made everyone completely risk averse from taking this lead and making this something that was functional and making sure that the Rails were developed to do this. We're now seeing the test cases of this. I think Chainlink will continue to be kind of the router for these transactions as it scales up indefinitely. I think they have a complete domination on the ability to connect these legacy assets with crypto. And then we're going to see things like ondo and other RWAs kind of facilitate this other mechanism. But God, it was like five years ago when you know, a huge part of the narrative was that everything would be tokenized. And I think that that created a lot of speculation and hype back then, but we didn't see a lot of results from it. This is those five years of building made manifest. We're actually the infra is now developed for the companies who are ready to take that leap, who are willing to take the risks, who are willing to be the adventurous first movers to bring these real world assets and securities on chain are now able to do it and they don't actually have to invest the tons of, in the tech to do it. So sort of what you were saying, they didn't do this on their own blockchain, they used what was available. But that's the most efficient path because this is what these companies and these projects specialize in and that's the info that they built. So I think that this trend is going to accelerate. I think we're going to see a lot of headlines on this piece going throughout the rest of the year and beyond. And I think we're going to see some big moves and we're going to see some longer tail some kind of liquidity comparisons of when we're comparing different securities on chain versus securities and their volumes in, in legacy markets. And I think when those things happen, it's going to be really compelling.
- [48:28]
Mike McGlone
Yeah, it's, it's interesting. And then the other, the reason I say it's interesting is because if you look at like, you know, relative market caps, I mean, you know, Mike McGlone always likes to, to make fun of and, and not undeservedly so. A world where Dogecoin is worth $35 billion and Shiba Inu is worth $9 billion. And then you go down and you realize that you just mentioned chainlink. But where is chainlink in terms of its overall value? It's right around, it's at 11. So it's like 1/3 less than 1/3 of what Dogecoin is at. And forget everything else. And if you really think the chainlink is going to be that glue, then it's ridiculously cheap. Now I'm not saying that that's true. I'm not saying it will be that glue. But it's kind of crazy when you look at relative valuations in the market. It feels like people, you know, it's, it's almost like there's like the story matters more than the reality in a lot of this stuff. And legacy story is, is hard to wipe out. And you know, understanding that crypto is most, mostly momentum based traders, you kind of understand why that is. But it does feel like the narrative you just mentioned, Amateo, is not priced in, not, not in, in either direction.
- [49:47]
Scott Melker
It's just not. I mean we just, it's because we're just starting to see the test case Right. So these are proof of concepts as this becomes a fundamental mechanism of how assets move and trade. And all of a sudden we see the ability for liquidity to move faster to real world assets. We kind of break through this fourth wall bubble of crypto just being magic Internet money. And I think that that's like a really important piece. I think people understand that now with Bitcoin because the way it turns electricity and power into value capture and makes it transferable anywhere in the world. But the rest of it, you know, to your point of dogecoin and bepe, there's a lot of fugazi and, and I think that we have to see the actual liquidity improvement of real assets of securities for this to, to break through that fourth wall and everyone to go, okay, that is actually the future because we're seeing the ass. Efficiency improvements and the cost efficiency for people who are actually moving these resources.
- [50:59]
Mike McGlone
Yeah, I mean that is literally. You just, you, you described the exact opposite of what we were seeing at in the, in the circa 1999, 2000 within the Internet bubble. Literally the polar opposite. You just described 1990, 96. And that is a very different outlook. I know that stock market valuations might be more like, you know, 2000, actually higher in some respects. But in terms of crypto, in terms of the kinds of things that are attracting value and wealth, it feels much more like the early days, which is a really interesting dichotomy. I don't know how you look at it, or anybody else does for that matter, but it does feel interesting to me.
- [51:47]
Scott Melker
Yeah, it's compelling. I'm open to everybody else's thoughts too. It's really an interesting moment in technological advancement. And then you then take all of that, I'll add one piece, which is you take all of these assets, you make them extremely liquid on chain, and then you release the agentic infrastructure. And that, that is really an entirely new world of global commerce and resource allocation. I just don't think people. One that's not priced in two. I think it's really hard for our minds today to wrap our heads around what comes of that. You're chopping out, Dave.
- [52:41]
Mike McGlone
Yeah, sorry, I just got a call, but it'll. It'll be over. Well, we're running up against time and I can't tell if anybody else has hands up or wants to speak. Is there anybody else who has thoughts to add on any of this stuff? I mean, you know, what I'm at and I were talking about is a large part of the reason why Vaneck is doing what they're doing and other people are doing what they're doing to try to get and tap into this. Okay, well, in that.
- [53:04]
Gary
Yes.
- [53:05]
Mike McGlone
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
- [53:06]
Gary
I was just gonna say, I mean, it's pretty epic time. I mean it's, it's kind of hard to process it all. Like, there's just so much going on. You know, you had major announcements this week from, you know, crypto companies, crypto reserve strategies. Some of the other people were talking earlier about the corporate, you know, the corporate strategy is a big deal and you know, there's only so much bitcoin. You know, we have this, this. I think it's good to zoom. Now is a really good time to zoom out because it is, you know, sort of never ending chaos for the last several years. But it's, it can be good chaos. And I, I think the world is just really, really changing rapidly and this has happened a lot of times in history. You know, I always think what it must have been like for, you know, there's history kind of stand stands still for 90 years and then everything changes in two years, you know, five years, 10 years, something like that. And then things stay, you know, we're definitely in that period of upheaval and I think our industry is a really, really big part of it. And you know, the nature of money, like, you know, thinking about what money is, is, is such a big question. And you know, I know people in finance for 20 years can't define money, but you know, we're, that's what we're working on now. You know, what, what is money and what is the nature of money? And you know, we have this unlimited supply phony asset printed from thin air and given to cronies for wars and nonsense versus the limited supply assets. You have unlimited supply versus limited supply and you have 150 strategies like saylor and probably another 300 on the way. So you're looking at, by the end of this year there'd be 500 decent. I'm talking big companies. There's going to be 500 companies with some sort of bitcoin treasury strategy. And there'll be more ETFs and more access and more exchanges and more Hodlers. And it's all trying to get some of these limited supply bitcoin. And I think that bitcoin, that tide lifts all boats. It helps things like tokenization of other assets and stuff like that. I mean, it's something you got to just sort of step back and kind of think it's like a fire hose. I'm just like, I got to just go on a walk and chill and digest all this. Because, you know, we, we are different from our, our immediate ancestors didn't live in these epic times. You know, our great grandfathers and depending how old you are, might have had these, these kind of times. But, you know, this, this epic continuous chaos and change, you know, I think it's a hopefully beautiful thing. And hopefully, you know, a lot of times these times of great change are marked by global war, you know, and I'm hoping that it's marked by an economic growth revolution led by new money, sound money, digital revolution. You know, I think it's. I think it's great. I think it's, you know, very, very exciting times.
- [55:54]
Mike McGlone
I mean, the funny thing is, Bruce, is, and I think we've actually discussed this before, probably a couple of years ago even, that the vast majority of analysts and everyone who lives and works on Wall street has no notion or no memory of whatsoever of a time before below market interest rates and a prioritization of capital over labor, because that goes back to the 80s. And so you had this. Yes, we had a bull market that was interrupted by a few hiccups. I mean, the most recent one was the global financial crisis where literally the plumbing ceased. Right. Because stuff that we were over leveraged on a pile of assets. And really, I mean, anyone who doesn't understand how stupid some of the things that were done to cause that were. It's worth a conversation. But literally, it's an entire world on Wall street where the vast majority of people just don't understand what this means. I mean, you made a point, and I think it's a good one, which is we're trapped in this dynamic thing. Well, bitcoin, well, maybe we can get to 135 or 140 in this cycle. Yet most of the people buying it believe that it's undervalued between 80 and 90%. Now, it wouldn't be crazy to see that kind, you know, a kind of rally, except for the fact that fund flows, people will take profit because it would just be too big. I mean, the creation of an asset that's $20 trillion is not going to happen overnight. And we all kind of understand that. But it, that's what we actually think it's going to be worth. Right. So it makes an interesting dichotomy, doesn't it?
- [57:34]
Gary
Yeah, I think we could see it. You know, bitcoin always goes up more than you think. It goes down more than you think it's going to. And there's been a lot of periods where it's gone. I mean, I remember the rally to 20,000. There was a prominent bitcoiner in our guest house. And that person was like, you know, they, they told me I was upstairs at my office. They were borrowing one of the spare offices, and they're like, what? We just had 20,000. And I remember it was like, it happened so fast. It seemed like we were at six or seven and then just instantly. And that happened, you know, on the way from a huge number. And so it always does that on the downside, too. But I, I think that, you know, I think we could see 250 or more. You know, I, I think that it's, you know, just the world is so amazing and full of change right now. And you're right, you know, the world isn't working the way it's supposed to. It's interesting that you mentioned the 80s because, you know, my mom was a stockbroker and I was a little kid kind of raised on the floor of a brokerage. And that was in the 80s, you know. And so I started my career really young. I was 19 when I got my, you know, you know, when I became a licensed investment professional. So because I was so young, I was lucky enough to see the last tail end of those was, you know, that was like 1992. So the, the older folks in my office, there was actually a guy who was, who had worked there since he was 14. He used to change the ticker numbers with a chalkboard. And so he was the oldest, I was the youngest broker in Morgan Stanley, and he was the oldest broker. He was like 85 years old and I was 19 years old. But, but there was a lot of colleagues that I had in the first few years of my career who were like baby boomers, you know, people who were, you know, 20, 30 years older than me. So I was lucky enough to see the last tail end of kind of, in my opinion, how the world should work and how the economy should work and how the markets should work. You know, things like aml, kyc. At the beginning of my career, it didn't even really exist as we know it. You could open an account over the phone, you didn't need an id. And the markets were very exciting, you know. You know, a lot of people think of the 80s as like, oh, these high profile insider trading cases or whatever. But, you know, generally it was, it was very, very positive time and much, much more free. You know, you could do Things like a regular retail firm could do a investment banking deal for a local business. So, you know, Merrill lynch in 1988, you could just go to your local stockbroker in Wichita, Kansas and say, hey, I'm trying to raise money for my restaurant and he could actually raise the money for you. That is so impossible. I mean, the compliance department would, would, I mean, they might fire the rep just for asking. It's so absurd. Now, like they, There is no way a local, you know, Charles Schwab or Merrill lynch broker is going to go and like raise money for a local product. But that's sad. That's because we've been strangled by this regulation. And to your point, there's a whole generation of young people who don't know how the world should work. They have this, you know, this phony, debt fueled, scammy idea of markets and you know, the way that it's been for the last, you know, 20, 25 years. And I'm hoping that the, I mean, the pendulum has to swing the other way. The world is, you know, if you look at human history and the history of economics, the way that it was in the 80s is much closer to the way it's been for the last 1500 years or so. This, this last 20 years is an anomaly. It's like, oh, let's have a bunch of fake money printed from thin air to that we give to cronies and we have a bunch of regulation that prevents people from doing trade and we get everybody's id. That, that's, that's a new and very, very stupid idea. And I'm hoping it's about to die in the dustbin of history. And we go back to the way that the global economy and the US economy and markets and fundraising and everything else is supposed to work, which is, you know, more free, more bold, more ability to move.
- [61:25]
Mike McGlone
And I mean, the funny thing, Bruce, is we could, we could talk about this forever and probably will. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be starting up a new podcast and I'm definitely gonna want to have a long form conversation with you on it. But we're at 1120 and I think that it's time for us to wrap. Unless there's somebody else who has anything else to talk about. But it is, particularly in light of the idiocy of the Democrats and a couple of Republicans stalling the genius act, you know, which is clearly because banking lobbies have paid money to, you know, protect their ability to rip off their, excuse me, to, to provide zero interest to the, the savers on their platform so they can have $6 trillion of money that's captive with, you know, it's just, it's enough to make people crazy. But it feels like if we're lucky, this is the death row of crony capitalism as opposed to it's going to continue forever. And maybe that's overly optimistic, but I guess we'll see, right?
- [62:25]
Gary
Yeah, let's hope, man.
- [62:26]
Mike McGlone
Yeah. Okay. Well, in any case, so we will be back tomorrow at 10:15 on Crypto Town Hall. As Scott is fond of saying, everyone who's speaking, everyone is participating, please follow. We will be back again and have a great rest of your day, everybody.