Grayscale's ETF Strategy Revealed! Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana! with Zach Pandl
51:42 Share

This podcast is sponsored by rap. Are you the decision maker in your company? Consider this for the first time in decades, there's a Better option for a corporate card and spend management platform.

Meet rap, the only corporate carden spend management system designed to help you spend less money so you can make more with rap, you get full visibility in your company spending and control who spends what. With each vender ramps, software collects and verifies instantly to save your team valuable time. Rap automates data entry and routine tasks with automated approval, expense categorization and bill payment time consuming tasks, which means you'll stop wasteful spending and close your books in hours instead of days.

Businesses that use and add to five percent to their bottom line the first year. If you're a decision maker, adding ramp could be one of the best decisions you've ever made. Get two hundred and fifty dollars when you join rap for free. Just go to rap dot com flash easy, rap t com flash easy, R M P com slash easy. Current issue by certain bank and shelty bag members of dic terms and .

conditions attended chicago wavers. Black friday previous sale is here early right now for up to seventy. First off, everything home shop early black friday als now at the way per store at eza.

every style, every home. The current filing that people should be aware of is for a diversified product. So our product, the gray scale digital large cap fund G D L C oh bitcoin a theory um and other a large cap tokens in smaller science of lange X R P and law um so that could be the first that's an active filing.

This content is brought you by the chain, which is a leading enterprise grade layer, one public blockchain, spearheading a digital revolution from a sustainable, highly scalable, smart contract platform. The veteran blockchain has many unique features, which makes IT an ideal choice for web three applications. V chain is working with many great enterprises such as P W, C G, N G, B M W and walmart china.

Most recently, they partner with the boston consulting group to build a revolutionary decentralized application ecosystem. I'm a big believer in this project. I happened since twenty eighteen.

I've been a vet token holder for years. And this block chain is highly scalable, uh, great with security and speed and IT has a low energy consumption. If you like to learn more about v chain, please visit v chain dot org.

Link will be in the description. Welcome into the thinking crypto podcast. I'm your host, tony at word. And my guess today is a panda who's the head of research at grey skill investments that great to have you on.

Thank you, tony IT is terrifi C2Be her e wit h you tod ay. zack.

I'm excited to speak with you. Grey scale is, of course, the leader in many different to financial products around crypto al assets. And you guys continue to innovate and build new, uh, product. So I have a lot of questions for you around that, but i'll love to get to know you bit Better. Tell about yourself where from and what's your professional background?

Yeah absolutely. Well, i'm originally from middle america. I'm from this conn. Originally a Green bypass. Er uh die hard fan, but the uh you know that that stuff is a long, long time ago. I been in new york ker uh, for the last couple of decades and before crypto, I spent my uh time as a macro economist on wall street.

And so um what that type of person does an economist to a macro analyst on walls stages you try to understand what's happening in the economy as a uh like GDP inflation, federal ve policy, other government policies and try to understand what that means for asset markets, stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities and seta. And at some point in that journey I A came to think that what's happening in crypt da, what's happening in public blockchain technology is the biggest, most exciting, most interesting thing happening in all financial markets. And I just wanted to go do IT uh full time. And so um you know I have a the really fortunate position to run research at a grey scale and to be immersed in the crypto topic uh all day long. And I really think it's the the most fun corner of of financial markets and very lucky to have the .

role that amazing. And I saw you spend time with golden sacks and so forth question I want to ask you because we've seen some economists and some of the traffic folks still don't understand bitcoin in cyp. Do they still have a negative view of bit? But what was the aha moment for you? When did you click for you as someone who wants, in very different background, you studying the economy and how it's currently constructed and so forth?

Yeah and I think all of my former colleagues, um you know where are different places in their crypto journey? Some of them i've had that I have moment, some of them not yet. But I think in inevitably um you know the technology is going to be ubiquitous uh for us and IT will just be a Normal part of the financial system that will require this education process.

But as you say, still early stage technology. Bitcoin has only been around for fifteen a years, much shorter as a major asset, uh, worth hundreds of billions of dollars now a trillion dollars. That's part of the global financial system.

So you know for me what was the aha uh moment? I think the uh you know I think that that moment was really during the twenty twenty uh period. When are your two things came together? Uh, one is that bitcoin behaved exactly as you would expect you to behave given the mac economic things that we're happening.

The federal government had really easy policy to try to help the economy uh, recover from copy. So interest strates were super low. The fed was printing money as people say, uh the government was uh cutting taxes and and sending out the checks and the economy was beginning to recover.

So in that type of environment, the dollar weekend gold increased and bitcoin increased really dramatically. So um you I think the aha moment was say, look, bitcoin is this asset now that behaves just like other macro o assets that behaves like a dog or haves like gold and can be understood and exactly the same away. Now the other important thing that was happening in twenty twenty was really the the emergence not just the very beginning stages about the emergence of a pretty well articulated decentralized finance marketplace in cyp du.

This is more on a theory um rather than a bitt coin. But the key thing to get across for your audience is I think, really demonstrated the breath of all of the things that are happening in cyp. du.

A bit kind is really important asset that i'm incredibly excited about, but it's only about half by market cap of what is happening in encysted to and all the other applications of a public blocking ing technology are so exciting. And so really those two things together, understanding the bitcoin micro s story and understanding, you know, all of the other applications of public blockchain technologies that make IT gave me that aha moment. I seen so many other people go through that uh, in the time sense 嗯。

in a way IT seems like this technologies is a bit of a god, and in a sense, a sense that you have to two thousand nine financial crisis and the fear money regime that we live in, the world we live in seems to be at an end because we are now the U. S. Dollar reserve currency.

That is it's now being the base right and is being chAllenged. But with to your point of a public block chains and toga ization and smart contracts, you can have stable points which could help uh, maintain that status. You have bitcoin, which is truly hard money in a truly global acid class. Um do you think the the solution here are here the right time to help solve some of these problems?

Yes, I think that's right and and is important to emphasize for your listeners that the U. S. Dollar or the japanese yen or the chinese man b or the euro british park, no of these currencies are going anywhere.

You know they going with us for a long, long time. Uh, but the perspective to have is remember in the united states we make transactions with dollars. We buy our coffee, we buy our blue jeans with with dollars.

We pay our taxes in in dollars. Outside of the united states, wealthy people, corporations, governments choice on what assets they hold in a in a portfolio, what currencies they hold that will help store their value, maintain their purchasing power over time. And for a long time, the U.

S. Dollar was the first choice is the world's when we say the world's reserve currency, that's what we mean. It's where, uh, wealthy asset holders around the world want to park their cash.

And what I would like to emphasize is the dollar is not going anywhere. But we believe increasingly, investors will substitute away from the dollar and into other assets. People have enough dollars.

We are printing more dollars all the time through dead issuance. And people want to differentiate away, diversify away from the dollar into things like gold, into things like other foreign currencies. And most importantly for me, of course, into bitcoin.

And you know, I think other things, other assets like physical gold may well benefit from the same macro. Trans is diversification away from the dollar. But in my personal opinion, bitcoin will be the fastest horse. IT will be the best performing asset, uh, as a result of some of these a big change. So the dollars like going anywhere, but IT is being debased, as you say, or or micro policy the united states is running in such a way is not consistent with continue dollars strength over the coming decade. And I quit my wall street jo B2Come wor k in in cyp XI w an t to be cor rectly pos ition for tha t. I want to uh, you know I think there will be huge demand for hard money assets or physical and digital commodities that can provide a store value ball work in a portfolio and protect against some of the risk from from money painting， from from big deaths and deficits and from the changing the world order that you're describing.

Um and speaking in the wall street, uh IT seems within the past year they've had their oho moment because you have the likes of black rock fd m folks issuing etfs。 Uh obviously grey scale was ahead of the curve, but the herd seems to be here and then now they're toga ized and they're getting involved in different ways like cutting reserves for stable coin issues. And so worth what do you your thoughts on that you know, given that once again, you are a golden sex and how to see all these folks here?

F as you said, grey scale was early in the story, launching a uh a bit coin um a product to investment vehicle eleven years ago in in september twenty thirteen. So has been doing this a long time. But finally in january of this year, we are able to bring these products to market as etf exchange strait funds or exchange traded products E T P.

Um and that gave a much broader range of investors access to these products. And you see lots of different things, of course, just bion hold investors that believe the bitcoin a story, whether their individual investors or pensions and endowments ah that are looking to diversify their portfolios into the digital commodity. We've seen that we've also seen a lot of hedged fund activity around these products and sometimes they're doing attention.

Chicago wave is black friday. Previous sale is here online and in person right now. Get up to seventy percent off everything you need for the season ahead. Save on furniture and betting, cook ware and holiday decor and tones more now. The time score, pig on fines to feast, get festive and get comfortable all things along shop early black friday deals now at the wave, their store at eats plaza and will met or online at weber.

We there, every style, every home.

Don't you deserve health care? You can count on? Well, you can count on united health care with medicare plans that fit your life today and does your needs change tomorrow. You can enjoy reliable cover and low out of pocket cost with a medicare advantage plans from united healthcare, united healthcare medicare advantage plans made for chicago trusted everywhere the medicare annual and roman period ends december s so go to u outcome, slash medicare today.

More sophisticated trades where they're buying the etf and then going short on futures and trying to capture small differences in Price, a kind of classic hedge fund h strategy. So the point is the institutional aizen of the market is definitely moving fast. Uh, now this year in the etf, the etp, uh, have been a very important part of that.

And I think that, that continues to be the core thesis for this crypto cycle. If you look back to the last cyp to cycle, if you will, you know IT was cover and lockdowns and people learning about a cypher and sometimes having some extra spending uh money around. And so was very retail driven a period in the market.

Uh, I think we are going through a more institutional phase. Where are many traditional acid licata are looking at the cypher asa class and saying this thing fits in my portfolio or i'm enthusiastic about decentralized technologies. I think they're gonna grow and I want exposure to that to that trend of in a portfolio。 So so absolutely, we are are going through this phase of institutional adoption, and I still think it's pretty early innings. So maybe the third dining or or something uh, you for the current cycle has a long way to go, something very important to watch over the coming year.

Um yeah great point. So do you anticipate that? Uh, look, as many of these institutions they are buying, uh, but they'll also pitching IT to their retail clients and accredited investors and institutional clients as well.

Um that the real crowd will eventually come come along。 You know maybe it's the mom and pop who didn't want to touch IT but hate their advisers, telling them, hey, you can now get allocation via etf. And the endings in the retirement accounts and pensions and soft.

absolutely. Crypto is a bottom up phenomenon that you know a grass roots phenomenon where people all around the world, uh, share a common vision around a the value of these assets and that was goddess uh there today.

Um we are going through a phase in which have more investors that weren't there for the origin stories of bitcoin, uh, whether there are their traditional investors that have a lot of other interesting things happening in their life and are not staring at early stage technology all the time. Uh, it's those investors that have assets that they want to invest, that want to protect the value of those assets over time. Uh, you know sometimes they're going through a financial advisor, sometimes they are approaching these products um you know themselves as a self directed a individual investor. Um but all all of those invest types are not getting access to the crypt o in in and I would just say in cheap, safe, convenient of vehicles through the exchange traded the products, there's lots of different ways to buy big coin of course but uh, there's nothing that's gonna cheaper, more convenient and safer for an individual investor you know that is putting real money into these products uh then using the the exchange traded product vehicle. Um um let's .

talk about grey scale. Uh, if you can give a quick overview of Grace. So for those who may not know in the various products you guys have.

absolutely. So gray scale is the world's largest cyp to as a manager um cyp to dedicated as a manager cyp to is all we do is the only thing that we do. We don't have all kinds of other things going on. And crypto is a part time a job. We are uh one hundred percent uh dedicated to the public blockchain space and happen uh doing this for eleven years starting with gbt c the gray scale bit coin trast launched seven years ago and and of course a very successful a product today. We run over twenty different uh crypto to investment vehicles that ranged the spectrum from low cost etf on the exchange, you know the great place for investors to get their access to bitcoin.

And the theory of the two products where we have the E T P E T F structure here in the united states are all the way to a range of a private vehicles for credit investors that hold single tokens or diversified baskets of tokens uh， for example, related to a certain theme, whether that is decentralized finance or decentralized artificial intelligence, which has been a big topic for a crypto uh, this year. So covering the spectrum in our goal is just to give investors in the united states the the best access to cyp to investing within the regulated parameter uh of the united uh of the united states of the rules of the road as the as we find them at the time h and in a safe and secure uh rappers that are really institutional grade. So um know for investors that are just experimenting with the crypto, do you know doing a couple hundred dollars here in there, you know I can make sense sometimes to to use the the crypto exchanges that people are familiar with or or wallets. But for investors, they want to put IT more capital. I make kind of longer run investments uh, in this space with with meaningful amount capital， they want to make sure that is managed to safely and securely and efficiently they come to, to use gray scale products.

And you mention the gbt c, that's the etf. Of course, what tells about the difference between that in the mini B T, C trust because I noticed that was a product that was recently launch.

Yeah so um for new investors that are approaching bit coin for the first time you want to approach BTC the r that's our low cost uh etf uh lowest expense ratio in the business up you are getting uh institutional grade custody and liquidity at in a really compelling cause that that is usually going to be cheaper than any other way to acquire uh, bitcoin. So uh, take A B T C for bittorrent.

Don't you deserve health care? You can count on, well, you can count on united healthcare with medicare plans that fit your life today. And does your needs change tomorrow? You can enjoy reliable coverage and low out of pocket cost with a medicare advantage plans from united healthcare, united healthcare medicare advantage plans made for chicago trusted everywhere.

The medicare annual enrollment period ends december seventh. So go to U. H, C. 点 com slash medicare today。 At the ups store, we know being a small business on the means, holiday time is still go time, still get those order shift, and still we up on stamps and surpass time.

That's why this of common holiday, while others close up shop, will be up and happy to help you keep being unstoppable. Coming to your local store today, most occasions independently on products, services, pricing and hours of Operation. See details the ups store be .

unstop take A E T H for theory and these are the two, uh, new investor products that have the lowest cost structure uh in the marketplace. We also have gbt c which is our a legacy product that investors have had great success in, of course, over the last eleven years investing with the with bitcoin uh and for investors that uh you know have been along with that journey, this product continues to make a sense with for them, for the new investors. Take her. B, T, C, is really the place to begin.

Oh, got IT. okay. Um man, you know I want to make sure you you guys get your flowers because gray scale that so much for the market creating these products in being ahead of the curve.

But not only that you guys sue the S, C, C when you know what the judges would call arbitrary, previously blocked the conversion to a the coins body. Tf, what's that journey been for you guys? Uh you know once again in being ahead of the curve and in doing all these things and now because of your Victory IT open up the market for the rest of wall street?

absolutely. Um you know I haven't been here uh running research of gray scale for the whole journey and I have to credit the real visionaries who were uh you know started the business uh and gotta say going you know eleven years ago was a very different time and encrypt and to sort of have that vision at the time where this active manager was heading, IT IT deserves a lot of credit. Look, there's nothing easy about Operating in this space.

Uh if this is an early stage uh technology with um you know with a really unique asset classes unlike anything ah else with uh you know some lack of clarity on the rules of of the road and a yet Grace co has been successful ly Operating uh in the space for eleven years without without incident and always leaning forward, you know always are trying to do best by investors and bring the most compelling products tim market. So as you say, how we got here uh with the big C T F took unfortunately took a lawsuit。 Um uh fortunate we able to prevail in that.

But Grace sqa took the difficult decision to a bring litigation against the S C C and ask a court to uh take a careful and fair and baLance look uh at how the um commission was was treating the issue of bitcoin etf um as as well known from people that work in this space. We won that lawsuit and that's what brought these products to to market. So we we you know we don't want to a always take that step.

And I think that um we will see comprehensive legislation around digital assets in the united states in the next couple of years. That would be my own a prediction, in which case we won't have to uh, go through those types of steps to get the investors access to the product types that they they want. But when necessary, we will do what IT takes to Operate good products, uh, in this market and to give our investors uh, a good experience from, uh, investing in cypher. You know, I think we can absolutely say we've done that to date, and we will continue to work hard at that for the next eleven years.

And I know you guys also have products around all coin, such as ex X R, P and so forth. Recently, there was a real unch of the X R P trust talks about that decision to relate ch that yes.

So we have launched a tuna products this year. Um you really driven by investor interest as well as our own internal analysis of what we think, uh, are the most compelling opportunities in the marketplace uh, at the moment. And so these things have range, a huge spectrum from bitcoin scaling ideas to uh A I related project to some of the decentralized to finance um uh stall war s so it's a whole range of things.

X R P is one example that and I said that one you know really driven by investor interest. Uh there are a lot of uh X R P enthusiast out there and uh we wanted to be able to uh offer that product. We previously offered the next R P product and and withdrew IT uh after some of the legal issues emerge。 Now that were uh, we felt we were ready to offer that product again uh, today. And uh and the investor receptivity has been has been very good. Oh, it's really a combination of investor service and our own a views of the industry opportunities that drive these product decisions.

So of course, a lot of people want me to ask you, when is great scale gonna file for an X R P body T F and even a salona body T F?

So um the current filing that people should be aware of is for a diversified the product. So our product scale digital large cap fund G D L C, A own bitcoin, a theoria and other a large cap tokens in smaller science avante X R P and and slam. Um so that could be the first that's an active filing um and investors can take a look at that. Um uh that would be the first uh example of X R P making its way uh into the etf structure here in the united states. A I can't comment on anything else.

I would say though that uh you know as we because we talked about the lawsuit, the mechanism by which we are able to uh bringing the lawsuit was by pointing out that uh, the there are futures contracts on bitcoin and a theory of on the chicago mercantile exchange regulated, uh, futures exchange and that's what created is unfair treatment or or inconsistent treatment for the spot bitcoin and the spot either uh E T P. So nothing else at the moment, hans listed futures, uh X R P or sona or or whatever um and so we've just need to see how the ad evolves, how the future futures market evolves, how the regulatory backdrop evolves before we know um you know what the the etf product market structure is going to look like in the coming years. But I think that's okay. I mean, I I think we are able to uh, offer investors um you good access to these assets through our private fund structures even if they are not quite yet available in in etf structures and will get there uh, over time. Yeah.

that makes sense. There's a couple thoughts here because I remember there was about a month and half guy, I spoke to S, C, C, commission or histories and ask the question, look, I do have to have a futures market to get a spot T, F approach. He said, no.

But that's how the s has been doing that. And that's many etf experts are saying that, but is not necessarily a Mandatory requirement. But uh, maybe they're going to continue to doing that maybe because there's baLance in the market.

Second, my concern is if we approve a lot of these all coin body T S, the market may be too overwhelming, too early because we're seeing a lot of inflows going into big coin. Eat has been performing well and get me wrong, but it's a harder cell, right? Digital goal and a hedgie, an inflation the easier cell.

And bitcoin has its branding. A lot of people know about, uh, trying to pitch mom and gramm grandpa, but smart contracts and maybe IT difficult. Or here's this other l one. What's the different between salon and e theo and X R P? So I don't know if you agree with those of ments.

Well, exactly right. Look, you know the sales force yard gray scale and the research team H I don't think anyone is more on the front lines of talking about these a etf structures to, uh, the average investors. Now we are out in the country a talking about these things all the time.

And I I would really underscore your point about education, the bitcoin a story， although it's still uh, growing, of course, is uh I think straight forward for people to understand even if they don't understand everything about public block chain technology, they do see the world around them. And I understand the value of a hard money asset, uh like like bitcoin. And so that that's why we've seen so much adoption of that technology is the macro thesis.

Um yeah what's happening in the economy, what's happening with inflation, what's happening with the dollar that is causing people to gravitate to big coin. Although a theory um is the same underlying technology IT really is something completely different and people under know some of its applications. So I find that uh, investors are for you know becoming familiar with toga ization stable coins, decentralized finance prediction markets. You know they have some flavor of all these things and I think they don't really appreciate that a serum is the primary platform for these uh, things today.

So that sort of the education process you know theory um well for those of us who stared crypt fair amount you know have pretty familiar with the three and its use case and used to using um uh you know software wall, it's in all this time of thing interacting with the authorities of blockchain but for most people this is a pretty far out idea you know they don't know that the theory um is you maybe the most important open source software project ever ah so so this will become more obvious over time. And what I most focused on is the toga ization angle. Um for the next day, six to twelve months, if you see more traditional financial services firms cocoa ized assets on the theory um um you know that's going to wake people up to the use case of this uh this alarm, this blog k chain, this technology and I think will cause people to want to own the asset in the etf structure.

So the education the learning curve is much, much bigger than IT is for a bitcoin. Were not there at. I'm pretty confident that we will be getting there in the next short while. And the toga ization will be an important driver in my view.

And maybe to your point, uh, the index uh or the basket that you guys have fall for, yes, that's probably Better because it's easy to say get exposure to be coin in the top four with IT or top five.

Yeah that's right for investors that want to have a simple uh diversify exposure. You know it's only five of a token. So um you know it's not hundreds of tokens, but but that's a great way to to go um to have some big coins of a serum and some other assets. Um that problem has been running for uh a number of years since the beginning of of twenty eighteen and has successful track record and we hope will be obligated uh, in the nature distant future as an exchange trade product.

Don't you deserve health care? You can count on, well, you can count on united health care with care plans that fit your life today. And as your needs change tomorrow, you can enjoy reliable coverage and low out of pocket cost with a medicare advantage plan from united healthcare, united health care, medicare advantage plans made for chicago trusted everywhere the medicare annual enrolment ment period ends december s so go to you to see our com slash medicare today.

right? You've got .

questions. Oh, Riley, auto parts as answers need a pro. You can trust we've got that too.

No matter what you need. Our professional parts people have the training and expert to help you do things right. Deep automotive knowledge, just one part that makes so rarely stand apart the .

professional parts people already at all parts.

Can't wait for that one that that's going to be great. Um now you mentioned organization. Do you foresee maybe not this likely or maybe a couple years from now as toga ization grows and there is more of the trade five products and services coalition on the blockchain and even commodities like that grey scale may offer these products uh because maybe their their tocom ized on three marsin a whatever.

Um but you can create a product around that. Uh I don't know that something outside your wheel house or to be too how out of lefuel. Uh, but what do you .

thought of that some other asset managers are experimenting with on chain toga ization and finding that that a way to reach their a clients. Uh, that's not something that we are considering uh, today. Of course, we watch closely these developments and but uh, we we don't see uh in immediate uh client demand, you know client to service reason to offer those Price.

If that we're to change, we would, of course, uh go ahead and and do that. So what would focus on giving clients are two tokens uh, in their traditional vehicles, whether is a broken account to a private investment vehicle. If our clients come to us and say we want to get exposure to these things on chain, we will are certainly figure out a way to do that for them. So so we don't see the client need, although we are encouraged that other asset managers are making these experimental steps. And hopefully, that helps further develop uh, these block chains and further developed the whole toga ization ecosystem.

Yeah absolutely. It's still so early. And I know these regulations, rules and things that have to put into place, but I tell you what I I would in mind investing in a trusted in etf.

The grey scale puts together for uh, a really hot real estate in york city in manhattan, right? Because I know a what happens there and the real stay growth in value and so forth. If i'm able to own a piece a of the empire state building, the Christal building, and I passed IT down to my kid, whatever, I don't know what .

a despite bowling. Yeah, I think you will see these things. I mean, ah I think you will see every asset type essentially toga ized to some degree and went how much degree will will find out uh but you for crypto native investors like like yourself, you know you like holding assets in a ccr ypo wall and and cogan ized the form most investors are not yet in that paradise.

They're used to investing things through their broker to their job account or whatever IT might might be. Um and so it'll take a little time before the world's investors have gravity chain. I don't think it'll take that long.

Uh, but the whole process of toga ization or let's say the supply of toga ized asset is going to move hand in hand with the demand for these things as uh, investors increasingly find themselves on chain that we know having access to these investments through cyp to walls. And you know i'll take a number of years to play out, but I I do think it's a very important adoption trend for crypto. And four theory um specifically, you know it's one of the things that a theory um stands out as a leaving uh in contrast to um you know some of its l 1 competitors。

Now are you blown away by the amount of inflows we seen a to the E T S? It's been record breaking. I'm seeing a lot of the etf experts are like we have not seen anything like this. It's blowing all records out the water, and IT hasn't even been a year yet. What do you thoughts on the inflows?

Well, we thought they would be very successful. So I don't know that. I want to say that i'm blown away and we wouldn't have gone through the process of seeing the C.

C if we didn't think that there was tremendous demand uh, for these types of vehicles in in the U. S. And I think that that has been uh validated.

Um so the products have taken something like twenty four billion dollars uh year today. Um you know that as you say, the etf experts will tell you that this is the most successful etf launch of of all time. These products now owned about five percent of all the the bitcoin outstanding.

Um so yes, we've been hugely successful is very natural for in investors to want to hold bitcoin in a etf. Rapper um you know I I I think IT, you know of course will be the main way that I own uh, a big coin. And yes, we'll see where we go.

We'll see what you know what the info is look like next year and beyond and whether uh demand for a theory um starts to pick up. But it's been a great start for these um for these products um and really you know cemented their their role in the U. S.

Financial system for for a long time to come. The one other thing I just say is although the inflows have been uh, large already, I I would I do think that those were early adopters or fast followers. A you know there are although there big numbers, there are many, many thousands, millions of investors that don't have access to these products and where the education process is just getting started. So I think that the trend can continue deep into next year and beyond um as more more investors are turned on to the asset class yeah .

been hearing that like the major wired houses even even gotten to yes .

that's that's right. Um many investors do not have access to these products through their broken age counter advisor relationship even though they're available uh on exchange of that doesn't mean that everybody can can access them through whatever process they're using and that is one of the most important things that will change. Uh, we are having all those conversations. Uh, I think it's a fairly straight ford uh, conversation for of these these platforms. Um so you know fingers crossed, quite a lot of that will change in the .

next six months. Now i've I don't know how much you going to tell me about this, but i've heard that there are very different types of E T S that could follow this body T F, because they exist in the trade fier world. Are you guys looking into other types of E T S around bitcoin? eat. And so for yes.

I can get into all the product plans, of course. But but uh yeah, we have A N etf business and the private fund business. And on the etf side of things, we are um you know considering all of those permutations, um we want to make sure investors, first and foremost, have a great experience in the products that we already have put into the market.

And so were making sure that those products uh are uh trading at alter type spreads that investors have access to them um that you know they can do all the types of trades that what they want to. So you know today priority is education about B T C and E T H, the two low cost of products. Uh, the track records have been great.

The performance have been great to working great. So we wanted to make sure that those products, uh, are a leading the industry. H first, uh, that said, yes, we are looking at all the other permutations. Um and you know we will see where investor demand ends up uh, being you know I think that's one of the open questions. We don't know that um no, we don't know that the model will look exactly like IT does in traditional finance.

But I think you can expect E, T, F issuers to continue to experiment to give investors of all the different options that they might be interested in other products with with crypto o and we will see you ultimately where the assets end up。 But today, priorities are about uh B T, C. And if um and you know i'm spending most of my time uh just making sure investors know about these products uh and uh and how well they stand up relative to our .

competitors. Guta exactly. And if you agree me, but I think once we get staking in the term E T S, I, I don't know what's the process for that. I know you guys are working with the regulators on this, and I noted that we need still need clarity from the see, but that will make IT very appealing.

Well, I think it's already very appealing. I would kind equip without a little bit that um this question about staking was very important initially. Are they gonna stake? Are they not? And and in a perfect world, you would have that additional return.

But it's important to emphasize that the return to staking is a small number, you know three percent or or something like like that in in a ball park. And and these are very voltige assets that are held primarily for capital. And and so well, you know you know you might do a little bit Better with staking. Uh, it's really the Price performance that matters first and foremost.

And in the specific case of a theory um uh even non staking token holders benefit from activity on the network and because uh of the burning a mechanism that happens on the chain, uh this is kind of like an equity buyback, right? So went so some companies they pay divided and some buy back and share some to a combination of both theory um defective doesn't combination of both of those things. And so any token holders is benefiting from buyback ack.

So I don't think staking is a key issue for the for the etf. Uh, I think education is a much more important issue um and on stake the theory um um I still think we will be an excEllent investment h over time. So um I I certainly wouldn't hesitate recommending those products.

And what will tackle the taking issue in due course probably will need uh comprehensive legislation in the united states before we can sort that out entirely. Um but you know in the coming years, we will we will address that. I I don't think of anyway uh should hold someone back from owning this problem .

today oh yeah for sure like you still want to have that exposure and maybe the the staking would be the Cherry on on top of the sunday right um yeah nice to um you know what's on your road map? obvious. Ly, you covered a lot about some of things you guys working out .

anything else you want to highlight? Well, let me say a couple of things. I mean, we we always approach crypto from a micro and a micro O H standpoint.

Your bitcoin, not a little technological curiosity, it's a trillion dollar asset in etf held by thousands and thousands of investors. And IT behaves like a macros, is driven by elections, by the health of the economy, by the behavior of the photos reserve. That's why someone like myself of economist on wall street works in in critter.

Because big code I needs to be analyzed in that way. so. The first thing that we're thinking about is all the macro a stuff, you know, what are we are going to learn in the, uh, election? What does that mean for government spending, for the behavior of the federal or for tariffs, trade a barriers and set over the coming years? All of these things might happen for might have implications for bit kind.

So the first sort of thing on the road map, if well or the you know the agenda for us understanding the macro uh background investors that are involved in our process, they need to understand why, how bitcoin behaves, what that what that does, what IT does. And so we're here to help them with that process is in a huge part that is understanding the micro and then you have the the micro uh crypto. Is that the early stage uh technology uh space and there's so many interest things happening all the time.

And honestly, we can talk a whole call about this. So i'll just say one thing that has been most typical and is most important for us today， which is decentralized artificial intelligence technologies, decentralized A I or just D A I uh is sometimes people were called in encysted to and this the idea here is that we have uh, all of these powerful artificial intelligence of technologies that are centralized. And in the same way that centralized systems can create chAllenges when IT comes to money or when IT comes to finance, we believe that they could create certain societal chAllenges when IT comes to A I and the decentralized AI projects.

How do we recreate some of what we see, uh, in closed, centralized the systems in a more open uh, source, open architecture permissionless a way. And there are tons of exciting projects uh, on this a today and uh and that's an area that we're really leaning into. I'd say that's where most of our new product, uh, announcements have come this year, where a lot of the research effort I has been. So I would say for investors that wants to go beyond bitcoin in the theory um and you know people that are eager to learn about early stage technologies, I say the decentralized A I space um is a great place to spend a little time to get up to speed. I think this will continue to be a very, very exciting part of the cypher market for the coming years.

I am excited to see what you guys roll out said in earlier, you guys been in the head of curve on many of these products. Uh, I definitely wanna have you back on maybe six months.

And now as big coin is heading to a novel time high and and maybe there's something new that's coming around the corner, um you know sticking to the macro conversation, uh, we've seen proposals like, for example, a presidential canada Donald anyone, senator city illum is uh proposing a bitcoin become a treasure reserve basket that unites can use and we're seeing different countries around the world are buying bitcoin. Um you know do do you see and I want to make sure our phrase is right, that eventually central banks will be holding bitcoin in and IT becomes like gold is sitting alongside. Goal is as a reservation.

I think that that will be the case. Uh uh I think uh however, uh my own personal opinion is that the united states will be A A A lagger rather than a leader in this process and the reason for that is although it's nice to see people talk about this in the united states, context you know demonstrates uh how enthusiastic a certain canada are about crypto.

I I appreciated for that reason the united states does not have a history of having a sovereign alth fund, uh, a big pool of assets that sends divided dividends back to the government and that's used to partly fund a government spending. Uh, we don't really have that in the u. States, but other countries do, particularly in east asia.

And in the middle is it's fairly common to have these pools of government assets that are invested。 Uh, in my view, that's where bitcoin will make its first inroads into government of portfolios. Of course, you have some cases already or so the door confided bitcoin in mining in some countries so you have some nation state e involvement in a bit can already but IT turns of a portfolio asset.

I think we should look forward to show up as a component of one of the southern n wealth on the assets in the middle story or in uh in asia in the next couple of years. I would be totally unsurprised uh, to see that. And then for central banks, you know that'll come a little bit later.

Um you know I think we will come. But but further down the road of the sovereign friends were a very natural holder of big line. And I would not be surprised in the next several months to to hear an announcement like that.

We know I don't know anything. We we will see uh, but but that's likely where are to begin. I think big fits great in the context of those types of portfolios。

Yeah it's fascine. You have wall street, you have companies adding bitcoin as a reserve based on their baLance sheet um and obvious ly E T S and some countries are already started a adopting bitcoin. And its south and wellness und seem to be the next uh, domino that my fault.

T yeah very fascinating. I'm also waiting to see uh some of these energy companies uh start to mind big coin uh with their access energy and block energy and so forth, where they can monitor ze that wasted energy. I think that would be a big use. 可以。

So too and that in a very important issue for the bitcoin community. Um you know a bitcoin consumes energy, uh but um many of us believe that can be used to help the energy transition needs of society. Um uh and you know burning off access mEthane for example, is an excEllent way to do that. So these are uh fairly really stage efforts. These things do happen. But um you know the more that a bitcoin ts energy consumption is very important uh and very important, bitcoin I think well worth at the value that we we get from bitcoin um but over time, you know I think bitcoin, because that is a really unique energy buyer um can help uh with the Green transition in a lot of unique ways and that's something i'm very excited to see uh over the next couple of years as more and more efforts around around this a motivating minors to uh you know to consume and to document their use of greeting energy and um and encouraging uh products projects that can actually reduce um the uh emissions problems are from certain projects like a like like open wealth. And I know things that the bitcoin community is trying to address.

What are your thoughts on the stable coin market? IT seems to be hitting up. A lot of competitors are entering in is gray scape looking to do anything with stable coin is where there is a product or .

launching its own B H. No, I think not for us. I mean, you know, this would be another an example of something like organization, that an adoption trend that will lead to demand. And I think A A value growth for the underlying public block chains like a theoria, uh, but it's not inertly telling that we need to uh offer a product in.

But just for your listeners what you know, what is a stable coin? A stable coin is just cah uh, on blockchain rails, usually dollar cash uh just toga ized dollars um and and people use these both for uh to have a cash asset in the contract of speculative trading to you take uh off a risk and to put back on risk in the same way you'd have ash uh in a traditional uh investing setting uh and also for payments, particularly cross border payments um in particular in emerging markets. And so yes, table cos a very important um uh use.

Um you know in my view, we are not going to make digital payments in the future that we do today. You know what? I want to make a payment to tony today. What happens as I message my bank and IT begins to debate my account and IT sends a series of messages over a couple of days and finally IT settles as a credit uh, at the financial institution that tony banks, uh at. And so it's a whole kind of commerce on process that takes multiple days and debris and crotch.

In the future, i'm going to send a stable coin directly for my address to tony address IT will be done in a matter of seconds and there are no inter media is at all. So I believe that stable coins and public block chain tech will give us a sort of zero to one improvement in terms of cross border payments and were very, very close uh, to this really breaking out. And as you say, tony, the um the introduction of traditional players that are already doing this type of a phin tech activity into the stable coin market is very encouraging to see.

And I think the outcome will be a primarily stable coin base cross water payment system. You know we will see if that proves to be a correct, but that's the direction I think we're heading. You know, I think be the marketplaces post for a lot of growth.

Now somebody investing encysted, they don't invest in stable coin. Coins are just a or they're going go anywhere, right? That's the whole point. They're um but the growth in this market provide the value to tokens like a theory um like salon h know like a Stellar others that have a fair man of a stable coin activity. So so we will see uh how this how this goes, but the very important adoption trend and something that I think will dramatically improve uh ross border retail payments in the future, and I can't wait for that to be the norm.

Yeah absolutely. Um I currently use some vendors uh who are overseas and we transaction stable coins instance settlement, there is no confusion. There is no calling anybody who just goes there and done.

It's exactly couldn't be couldn't be easier. The uh and the you know anyone that has had to do a lot of crossed world payments, um uh you know is familiar with all the retail applications or for the institutional level of the correspondent bank kind of arrangements ah and IT is really quite comer some and chAllenging and and full of fees. So you know there are is a Better solution that works. H that's why people in emerging markets uh that need these solutions the most are adopting stable coin ts that that works uh it's cost effective, is fast, is cheap, is transparent, you know have to trust anyone and for all those reasons um you we see stable coin organic adoption all over the world. I think that's something very, very likely to continue .

exact and never come up on time. And I get some rap of questions here for you. First, if you could create your own metaverse, what would the thing be?

Oh gosh, that's a good question. I'm just onna say lambo field, do you know Green bay? Everybody's got a cheese head on. Let's let's say that.

uh, some rapid fire questions. Favorite food, uh.

my favorite food. That's that's a tough one. Um you know I just because we ve got to halloween, i'm ther finger Candy. I don't know that's my favorite food, but I ve had so many mini butter fingers in the last couple days I can think of almost nothing else.

Yeah, i've been needing a lot of my kids Candy, uh uh a lot of sneakers than two weeks. A favorite musician and bor ban.

well, my favorite all time recording artist is bob Dylan. Um for me he he's supposed to be in the love, you know, right next to the mono listen, everybody else is a second tear so so i'm a huge bag deal in a junky. I have no idea what he thinks about bitcoin.

Uh favorite movie and favorite .

movie um you know I so hard that I don't watch a ton of movies. I got a busy house with uh with the with with with kids but you know i've always been the star wars uh, junky. So i've seen all the star wars many, many times in different orders so I guess I have to go the whole franchise.

Yes, stories is great. Uh favor book .

and my favorite book, jez, is champing to say something a cyp to related a here. So so I will give that the answer. I mean, I love I I do have lots of other a books, but just for the sake of A A crypto answer, a people that are just getting started, I I do think that the the basics of bitcoins and black chains is a excEllent primer um and uh is what I give people that join gray scale that are uh getting started and they need to have a solid foundation of all the basics of that's a great way to to start.

I have not read that once all definitely check IT out. Um and finally, when you're not working in great cape, what are you doing for fun?

Well, uh I I have thirteen and fifty so I am spending a lot of time on the sideline of soccer fields uh in the folding chair chair them on ah that's that's my main hobby y these days.

Zack, I really appreciate your insights, and I would love to have you back on as things progressed for grey scale in the market hits up. Thank you so much for joining me.

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having us.