From a trading perspective, what do you think have been the disadvantages of of that union, if you will?
You get a little bit more of the volatility of the space. Also, the ETFs are bundled into stock market hours. So we're seeing some swings. There's there seems to be this Sunday night buildup and then something happening on a Mondays or in this particular week, Tuesday after the holiday. Uh, there also seems to be this market opens here in New York and there's a fall almost every other day in the Bitcoin space. So people are trading that, they're arbing, they're doing those things.
As far as long term, I think you're talking, let's see, scarcity is fundamental. It's not going anywhere. 21 million assets. We're not hardwired as human beings right now for scarcity. We're hardwired for abundance for most of our generation. Uh and when you have all this institutional money moving in, possibly some reserve conversations for the US and other countries,
that accelerating demand is happening under the scenes and most retail buyers are just reacting to the price headlines right now. So it should be pretty interesting to see when supply shocks start to hit on some of these markets. But
Well, I mean, I think and I think you kind of hinted at a real other fundamental difference now. In 2019,
I would venture to say the vast, vast majority of people who are buying crypto were true believers Yes. in the technological change it was going to bring. DeFi, all of the rest. Now,
I don't think that's true at all, right? Like Wall Street doesn't care. They just want number go up, right? They or or go down depending on where they're trading it, right? And I think many retail investors feel the same. They want to make money. Um and so I would think that that has changed things too.
Definitely. I think that early on, I mean, I've been doing this for a decade. I think the early believers, as you call them, they were there's a there was an inherent fear of government money, debasement, those types of things, a little bit of the new age of the gold bug.
Fear and greed are the two things that drive most investment policy. And so now you're seeing more of the greed factor come in and that's where you're seeing these layers of financialization coming on top of it. I think you probably noticed the big keyword at the conference, the buzzword to me was yield. Everybody's looking for yield options on these large holdings of Bitcoin, XRP or others, uh and almost every player is looking and trying to position that yield. Now, this isn't yield from 2022 to 23 where the FTX Alameda, the explosion of rehypothecation in the staking.
This is a new era, I call it yield 2.0 and there's some really solid fundamentals to it and everybody's looking for, okay, I have this bundle of goods sitting here. How can I put it to work for myself? Just like if you're sitting on a large balance of cash, especially at a time where rates may be dropping on cash, that's the one tool that a new Fed chair might have. Uh and that will take away some of the incentive for sitting on bundles of cash and and may position liquidity in other places.
And they'll be attracted to places that have yield.