Ep 30 - December 11, 2024 - SEC chair appointment
Welcome to another episode of the weekly crypto check-in recorded on December 11th, 2024. Member host Robert Sortha and Gemini and co host Andres Adate. How's it going, Andres?
Andres Sandate:Hey, Robert. It's good. Good to, connect this, sunny breezy Wednesday, in Atlanta. There's some, interesting headlines to cover, and there's been quite a bit of, price action in crypto over the last, you know, few days Yes. Probably because of some of the things that we've we'll talk about today.
Andres Sandate:So it's it's good to reconnect, though.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It's, breezy. I was outside.
Robert Swarthout:We had an inch and a half of rain the last couple days, and, all that moisture is outside getting blown through you with the super fast one. So it's super chilly, even though the number doesn't reflect it. So, anyways, I'm gonna jump in here. We got a lot of topics today because the text is really small. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can see it's obviously a lot to go through.
Robert Swarthout:But the first one being, Trump finally selected, his nomination for SCC chair. I was surprised, you know, obviously, I have, you know, a bit of, vested interest in the sense that I was waiting for this one over some of the other appointments. But finally selected, Paul Atkins. Appears to be very well respected, And he has been at the SEC before, so you kind of understand what at least what you're gonna get from most of the work he's gonna do. Crypto was not something that they dealt with when he was there.
Robert Swarthout:And but, you know, crypto is an industry who seems excited about it.
Andres Sandate:So Yeah. That's my takeaway as well. I you know, there's a lot of different ways to look at this particular appointment for crypto and the future coming
Robert Swarthout:out of
Andres Sandate:the environment we've been in in crypto where it's been more of an approach of regulation through enforcement.
Robert Swarthout:Mhmm.
Andres Sandate:It does seem over the last month, 6 weeks, you know, that there's been a lot more, enthusiasm, if you call it that, from the crypto community and the industry about more of a of a regulatory framework and an approach. You know, there was a couple of notable speeches that have been made around crypto. 1 by the president's son, Eric Trump, I saw was over in Abu Dhabi, I believe it was, at a big crypto summit, global summit, and, this week made comments that this would be the, the most, you know, pro crypto administration. There's only been a few crypto administrations in general, but this one Right. Certainly probably will, at least from from all indications, will probably be much more procrypto than than the Biden administration.
Andres Sandate:So you put that together with this appointment and some of the other things that we'll cover today. You know, I I think that there's, you know, cause for optimism.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. You know, I was mentioning to, a friend the other day via text that it just feels weird, having what appears to be wind at our back instead of a strong headwind. We dealt with that for 4 plus years. Now you potentially it feels eerie. You almost feel like where's the shoe gonna drop because it feels too good.
Robert Swarthout:So well, I'm sure something will not go our way along the way. And potentially, this next thing we're gonna talk about may be part of that, but it's, it's it's fun to at least not have to be bowing as hard to kind of take a step forward each day. So
Andres Sandate:I you know, I look at that, and listen to your comment and, you know, to me, that's a sign of of, you know, being a more astute investor. You're thinking about the risks. Right? You're thinking about the things you're not, able to, you know, maybe put a price or target around or you're not able to underwrite, and that's that's the unknown. Right?
Andres Sandate:And that's your job, you know, as an investor is to think about the potential risk factors. So it's easy to get caught up if you're a a a crypto bull in an environment like this where it seems like daily there's a lot of positive news coming out. But I think, you know, cooler heads will often prevail in the sense around taking each piece of information, each news, and looking at it collectively. So let's see if, Paul Adkins, does accept the role. I know that, you know, there's some speculation that he's feeling or at least there was sources that suggested that he might be feeling a little overwhelmed by the role.
Andres Sandate:There sure certainly is gonna be a lot of spotlight on on him and or whoever is, the SEC chair. So, hopefully, that individual is up to the task.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. You know, it's a last little bit of on him is, you know, people have said a lot about him in the past about what how he's acted and how they feel like he's right for this role. The way that I heard one person sum it up was he is the anti Gensler for the SEC, because we need to get rid of the, you know, the sting of what has happened there. There are a lot of reputational issues have gone on at the SEC and that need, you know, admittedly needs to be a respected agency again and for in some eyes, it's not. So maybe we can get some, you know, adults in the room to kinda clean it up.
Robert Swarthout:So,
Andres Sandate:well, we'll see. It'll be an update that we continue to track over the next few months. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Absolutely. Our second topic, kind of staying with the SEC, is, chairwoman, Crenshaw is up for reappointment. So her, term is ending. She has said that she was willing to sit for 5 more years in the in the seat. And, you know, admittedly this feels like it's a rush job.
Robert Swarthout:Obviously, the country voted. We know which direction it's going, and you have Democrats that are still in control in the banking committee, which does the appointments for this. Literally, appointed 2 new senators, both Democrats from different states, ahead of their normal, they they assume they got sworn in, so they got sworn in early so they could vote on this. The vote was supposed to be this morning. I got pushed this afternoon.
Robert Swarthout:It sounds like it's not gonna be in the normal room. It's gonna be in a secondary room. It it it feels slimy, in my opinion, and I hope that, you know, she does not get the confirmation she needs and has to, and Trump will get his chance to kinda put something in that seat. But she is more anti crypto than Gensler. She wrote the dissent letter for the Bitcoin ETFs when Gensler voted for them.
Robert Swarthout:When the court said you have to do it, we're saying, we don't feel like we should have to do this. So Yeah. It's it's unfortunate we are even having this conversation.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I think we talked about this a few a few, weeks ago. The, you know, the whole nature of of DC. Right? It's, and politics in general.
Andres Sandate:Like, we had this giant election, big election, lots of emotion, right, leading into it, and then you look at it from the multitude of dimensions, right, from the from the crypto Wall Street perspective, it appears in the economy and and just asset prices, stock prices, like the markets cheered the results. Then you go into actual lawmaking and regulation and all the things that can take the shine off of, or the enthusiasm out of, you know, this this late q 4, if you will, continued rally. Everybody's preoccupied with rates. It seems like every time you turn on Bloomberg or CNBC, the discussion is, you know, tariff policy, rate policy, but there's all this other stuff like this Right. Going on behind the scenes that is also meaningful to, you know, the outcome of of regulation.
Andres Sandate:It feels a little bit like the Democrats are trying to put a counterweight in last minute to what they probably feel like is a tsunami of change that's about to take place in Yes. In in terms of of banking and regulation. Who's who's to know if if it's gonna actually take place? But, yeah, you always you always sort of scratch your head and you have to question, like, the motives, but it does feel like the Democrats are trying at least to get some, you know, whether it's anti crypto or, you know, somebody to sort of be willing to pump the brakes. That's what this feels like if if she is in fact, you know, more anti crypto than than Gensler.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. You know, it's, I saw a tweet, which I didn't include in our notes here, was one of the people that work at Fair Shake, the crypto pack that had such influence on the election. Sure. And it says, we are watching closely today. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Because they're they're gearing up for the midterms and they're giving us support. One of the 2 people, Adam Schmidt Schiff, that, is one of the guys that got, confirmed early so he can vote in this, was supported by Fair Shake. So there's this whole line, like, is he gonna be is like, what's how is he gonna vote here? Because this is he's, in some sense, conflicted potentially.
Robert Swarthout:He wants to vote on party lines, but, like, potentially the people that helped get him in office have it have different, desires. So I don't know. We we will, I guess, know maybe by the end of the day or maybe tomorrow.
Andres Sandate:But Well, Fair Shake has a huge war chest as we will, as we've talked about on this on this, weekly update, and, you know, they were very successful in, in in deploying money, to support candidates 48 ish, I think, 1, 80 5 plus percent. So yeah. I mean, look. The midterms are around the corner, and I I think a lot of people are just exhaling from this last election. Mhmm.
Andres Sandate:And and yet, right, we all know that there's a lobby busy at work, setting the chessboard. So let's just see what happens. Obviously, you know, the SEC is is is gonna be meaningful in these updates, you know, until we know kind of the direction and approach. And I think we're gonna be talking about regulation a lot in 25. I mean, that's just the nature of this industry
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Where we're at. Right. And I I hope to be right because that may regulation in the sense that we're talking about what is being proposed and what's being voted on and all that stuff versus the lack thereof. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:I'm I'm Hopefully,
Andres Sandate:see some lawmaking.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Correct. Absolutely. So our next topic, is chair Powell last week, towards the end of the week, made the had public comments. I forget if he's at a conference or wherever he was at.
Robert Swarthout:He was
Andres Sandate:at the DealBook Summit, and and that was on December 4th. So, yeah, they had a lot of luminaries, government officials, you know, Andrew Ross Sorkin who does the DealBook, blog everyday, New York Times. So, yeah, he he came out with some comments. What did he have to say?
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. So his quote is he and and this is a bit paraphrased here, but I care about the relationship between crypto and the banking system. And and so end quote. Like, I when I first read that, I'm like, oh, it's obvious. They care.
Robert Swarthout:They don't want there to be a relationship.
Andres Sandate:It's not that
Robert Swarthout:they want they they care about how the relationship is. They they actually don't want it to happen, if the last 4 years are any sort of evidence of that. But, yeah, it's it just seemed a little bit, like, reactionary to what happened in November versus him trying to actually be supportive. Well, here's something the opportunity. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Here's the thing.
Andres Sandate:Sorry to cut you off. I'll let you finish your point, and then I'm gonna I'm gonna give you my take. These summits, you get these officials that come on. I have to think that there's 3 or 4 things that they've said just I'll talk about. You can ask me about Bitcoin.
Andres Sandate:Right. One of the things that so so in addition to the comments, Jerome Powell made, context, I think, also helps. Right? So up until, you know, a week ago, it was unclear if Trump president-elect Trump 2.0 was gonna keep Powell and or push him out. Powell came out and said, I'm not gonna go.
Andres Sandate:Right. I'm gonna lawyer up, and he's a lawyer. So he's like, I'm I might have to defend myself. Yeah. Yeah.
Andres Sandate:So you you saw this sort of standoff in public. It came out, I believe, yesterday or the day before. President Trump said he's not gonna replace so you have all this known in the background. Like, these these 2 are talking. He goes into the summit, and Jerome Sorkin asked him about Bitcoin, and he he said some other things that I thought were no noteworthy.
Andres Sandate:One is he did he compared Bitcoin to gold and said it's more of a it's more of a competitor to gold. It's just virtual or digital. Right. So for crypto
Robert Swarthout:US dollar. Like, he was trying to make
Andres Sandate:And not the dollar. Trying to completely separate them. And he he went on to add that it it's basically, it's too volatile for it to be a reserve currency or for it to be looked at like the dollar. He he continued with, I think Andrew Ross Sorkin asked him, do you own Bitcoin personally? And he said, I'm not allowed to.
Andres Sandate:So I I think that policy, these folks are only allowed to basically own index funds, which would make sense. You can only short, and and and do more normal trading if you're, like, an elected official, like, in the senate. You you know, you you can go in, like, short health care stocks when health care starts to get hammered with regulation, but you can't do that at the Federal Reserve. So in in total, my takeaway from this is, yes, I I I think it's easy to look at the Federal Reserve and Powell, their leaders, saying nothing should change. The US, you know, dollar should remain the global reserve currency, but there's all sorts of folks that are out there in crypto land and Bitcoin Maxis in particular that obviously feel different.
Andres Sandate:So when asked about should there be a Bitcoin reserve, I think he said basically no. Right. So I just think these questions can keep coming up more and more. I think as we go forward and, geopolitically, you just look at the Middle East, you know, you look at Russia, you look at what's going on in, you know, between China and Taiwan. I mean, there's enough hot spots around the world geopolitically for this to live.
Andres Sandate:Whether Trump, Yeah. Whether Trump decides to go and create a reserve or not, like, I just think that's gonna continue to come under increased spotlight. You know, they've got a lot on their shoulders around interest rate policy. There's a lot of folks that I think were in this, you know, higher for longer environment, but, you know, the numbers economically don't look bad. You know?
Andres Sandate:Unemployment's not terrible. That doesn't feel good to people out of out of jobs. Inflation is down from 7%, down below 3 again. So, again, to the people in the, you know, struggling, maybe it doesn't feel that way, but, you know, they they haven't done a terrible job, you know, at the Federal Reserve. So it's just it's just gonna be interesting to see how this, this whole narrative of crypto, strategic reserve, and central, you know, central banks, evolves.
Andres Sandate:Yep. He's gonna be a popular speaker over the
Robert Swarthout:next full year. And it will be, he's certainly gonna get more of these questions Oh, yeah. In coming months years. Like, it's it's not gonna dissipate for sure. So Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:We will see. Moving on. Our next topic, you know, I'm often asked, what it where's crypto being used? People wanna know what is it good for besides gambling, and speculating. And, and I and I get I go through.
Robert Swarthout:I can talk people's ears off about this, but I love it when I see these new things. I mean, I can point to something else.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:In this case, Algorand, which is one of the networks, it's a utility, token, in my opinion. It fits in the DINO tokens that we talked about last week in that basket. Electricity bills in Afghanistan, 30% of them are being paid with, an app that uses the Algorand network. So, you know, it's just it's not meant to be, like, world changing in this sense. That app, I imagine, could be used in a lot of places.
Robert Swarthout:It's a country that's rebuilding their infrastructure in Italy. So, like Yeah. They're making a huge technology leap. They'll be ahead of the US. I can't imagine we're gonna pay any sort of bills, let alone utility bills, even in the next 10 years on a crypto network.
Robert Swarthout:That would blow me away. It's gonna be a slow mover for sure. But but our systems largely work here. But in countries that are getting you know, a choice to kind of reevaluate what they use, it could be, an option. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. When you can start with a a slate and and kinda start without also the legacy systems and the infrastructure and obviously the millions and millions of customers, It's at all the all the dynamics. Right? Mhmm. I heard somebody that owns a an electric company say that they're like our power grid's a 100 years old in certain parts of the country, like and so we've been talking about infrastructure and up updating the grid and rolling blackouts and, you know, if you live in California, you're aware of that.
Andres Sandate:But, yeah, I I I I like these updates because while they're small in the global impact Yeah. They're meaningful in the sense of their of a test case for, you know, what what we could be seeing in, and and it's yeah. Like I said, it's another it's more evidence of commercial utility.
Robert Swarthout:Absolutely. Cool. So next topic is we're gonna jump back into Bitcoin and Bitcoin ETF land here for a couple of these topics. So Ibit, which is the biggest, ETF. Everyone should know that at this point from, you know, for Bitcoin from BlackRock.
Robert Swarthout:It is now over 50,000,000,000 of AUM. And again, everyone's expectation was the whole asset class, so all 8 or 9 of them might break 30 to 50 by the end of the year when they launched in the 30 to
Andres Sandate:50,000,000,000. Yeah. 1,000,000,000. So yeah.
Robert Swarthout:It's it's, you know, only a couple weeks left in the the year here at this point, but it's pretty amazing what these got, they've done in effectively 11 months. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, in in in under 300 days or so? Or
Robert Swarthout:228 days. I'm guessing those are, market days.
Andres Sandate:Trading days. Yeah. Yeah. So in in under 228 trading or in 228 28 days relative to the second fastest, it it took, you know, 5 or 6 times that. So Yeah.
Andres Sandate:Just a just a sense for just the demand out there for this asset class. As you've said for some time, Robert, like, there hasn't been a new asset class really in decades. Well Think about it.
Robert Swarthout:No. Centuries. Like, I mean, it's over a century. It was bonds. What's the last one?
Robert Swarthout:Yeah.
Andres Sandate:Right. So yeah. Yeah. The the demand for it. We, yeah.
Andres Sandate:We we I know we're gonna talk about more about ETFs, you know, in in in the weeks months ahead because there's filings and there's updates. But, yeah, I just think it's easy to overlook and say, oh, we were talking 10,000,000,000, like, 3 or 4 months ago. And then we're talking 25, and now we're talking 50. It's it's it's remarkable, really, when you think about it. And I don't even I I don't know if even some of these big wire houses and big institutions there's potentially a lot of pent up retail demand.
Andres Sandate:I don't even know if they're even allowed to sell the ETF yet. So Right.
Robert Swarthout:The right. There's there's a good amount. I don't know if it's half, but there's a good percentage of, basically, invest investor accounts out there that don't have access to them. And or even if they do, maybe their adviser is not advising on it yet. So it's like, this is gonna be a, you know, a multiyear probably, rollouts, but it'll be, it'll be fun to watch if there if nothing else.
Robert Swarthout:So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I'm thinking that wholesale grid for the ETF, sales for these wholesalers out, you know, that that hawk the the funds to advisers and others. I'm thinking the payout grid on the ETF is is probably been reduced couple of times given the amount of debate because I think these wholesalers out there for BlackRock are probably, like I mean, gosh. I can only imagine that role this year. Yeah.
Andres Sandate:Probably a lot of people that wanna see them. So I love the word czar, by the way, whenever I see that in terms of, like, these regulatory or sort of political appointments. It just hearkens back to, like, a different era. Tell me tell tell me when you see this headline, David Sachs. We talked about him before the show started.
Andres Sandate:He's a he's a VC. He's a he's a crypto pioneer, PayPal, mafia member. But tell us about this update because, whenever I see the word czar, I'm like, what what's going on here?
Robert Swarthout:Yep. I'll answer that. We're gonna talk about Bitcoin, a 100,000 first if we can go in order.
Andres Sandate:Man, I thought we were gonna skip that one. That was just so obvious.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Not obvious and under It worth
Andres Sandate:it is worth. It's a big milestone. I did that one on purpose. It was
Robert Swarthout:a big obviously, a very big mental milestone. It wasn't exactly a technical level that Bitcoin had to be terribly worried about. It has bounced around. It is right at a 100,000 today as we record, just shy of 101. But, you know, it was it was big.
Robert Swarthout:It happened, I believe around 9:30, 10 PM that on the evening it did. And, you know, it's, I was excited because I had a bet with a friend, Casey, that it would happen during non, market hours, because I just felt like I had a better chance. He took the market hours and he lost that bet. So he owes me a dinner at this point.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. It's it's it's kind of a logical, maybe for some people, like, a psychological I know there was some mainstream press that picked up on this and said, oh, all of a sudden, it's at a 100,000. You know, it doesn't mean anything really in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps. I mean, I would I would argue it's just a number, but it it it is remarkable to think about that pizza bet or that pizza order.
Robert Swarthout:Yes. You know? It's a $100,000,000 pizza at that point or 2 pizzas at that point. So it's, it's fun. So jumping back to your question about czar, There was rumor that Trump was going to appoint, or name somebody to be a, a crypto czar.
Robert Swarthout:He eventually did a crypto and AI czar kind of bundled together. I mean, I think it does make some sense. It's a basically a technology role, that he is, putting somebody in. And there was all sorts of names loaded for this. There was admittedly some names in the crypto space that I was a little concerned that they were gonna be appointed because I felt like they were a little hot headed, and I didn't feel like that is the voice that needed to be in the White House, talking about crypto in particular.
Robert Swarthout:But, David Sachs, is he's a calm, cool, collected dude. He's in the All In podcast. He's part of the PayPal mafia, if you wanna even go back that far. Well respected VC that, got appointed to be the AI and crypto czar, and everybody's excited. Admittedly, I had to do a little bit more homework on him.
Robert Swarthout:I wasn't too up. I don't list the the podcast with them all that much, so I've done a little homework on him, and I'm impressed. I can't wait to have a bit of voice of reason that knows what they're talking about about technology that close to, obviously, the president, but it is people with an influence within that in the White House.
Andres Sandate:So Yeah. My guess is the person, and when when they get these appointments, they're not relocating to DC. They're just gonna be in DC for critical meetings to give critical updates and then otherwise are keeping a pulse on the industry or no?
Robert Swarthout:I you know, I don't know, because it's also a position that the president can just create. It's not it doesn't have to be Yeah. Appointed by the senate, or confirmed by the senate or anything like that. So my guess is I mean, there's not much AI and crypto that is happening in DC outside of we just need regulation. So, like, you would think it's more like, you're up the field, come back and report.
Robert Swarthout:So Yeah. We'll see.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, this there's so many tech folks that have been involved in administration, you know, in in the actual vetting of candidates and the selection of candidates, it sounds like, and now, you know, part of the sort of what you call it maybe inner circle, and, you know, I I I think it's gonna be really fun, fascinating, to watch now that it seems that things have aligned. Right? Like, if if you're sitting and you're saying, if you could have all of this stuff line up to be pro crypto in terms of the election results
Robert Swarthout:Right.
Andres Sandate:You you pretty much got a clean sweep. Right? So now it's gonna be kinda interesting and maybe fun to watch to see, like, can can this actually translate into some regulation that gets bigger institutions and banks and other financial institutions engaged? Because if you can get them engaged, then I think there's, you know, kind of more of a domino effect. Right?
Andres Sandate:I just don't think we've really scratched the surface of what, the technology and crypto can be until we get, you know, that wholesale regulation in place. So you've got it seems like you've got the pieces on the chessboard to do something meaningful over the next 4 years. Just, you know, optimistic that with all all of these pieces and all these folks, that we'll actually see some results this time.
Robert Swarthout:Right. You know, and we were hopeful. I I reminded people we were hopeful about crypto regulations in the past even if they started working on it day 1 or 2 in, of the new administration, that was also, you know, when Trump first came into office, a big, thing he was working on was taxes. It took him almost 2 years to get it done. Obviously, taxes is a big hairy beast.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. And hopefully crypto would is not that and can get done sooner, but things do take a while even if you have, what appears to be alignment. So
Andres Sandate:Right.
Robert Swarthout:Fingers crossed, I guess, the way that I'm approaching that. Our next one should be relatively quick here. So there's been some other ETF filings. XRP's had some, Solana's had some, and there's been, like, maybe 1 HBAR, I believe each, ETF filing. But the there's basically, the scoop that I was reading for Eleanor Tourette from Fox Business was saying that, 2 of the 5 perspective issuers for the Solana ETFs that that the SEC is, telling them that they plan to deny their 19 before filing.
Robert Swarthout:So basically part of the application process before the s one. And, really, I'm not terribly surprised. We were talking before the show that, like, Solana is relatively well known in the crypto space. You ask anyone outside of crypto, they're having no idea what Solana is, what it does. Right.
Robert Swarthout:And I just think that, you know, at the end of the day, I can't imagine there'd be much demand for this product. Like, who's gonna buy this? Much like the ETH one, but even worse, because it it's even harder to explain Solana versus Ethereum, I think, to most people. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. There's so many products created on Wall Street or by Wall Street. I you know, whether the folks behind this are Wall Street or or they're crypto and Wall Street. You can white label an ETF now. There's so many platforms out there where you can create an idea, theme, create an exposure, come up with an interesting name.
Andres Sandate:Crypto is not the first and won't be the last industry where you see product created or attempt to create product to see if there's actual demand. I I yeah. I I don't see enough demand without an ETF that just because there's an ETF, it all of a sudden changes the game. Yeah. So
Robert Swarthout:Yep. But but with regulation, maybe it just comes clear. I don't know. But we're probably still months 6 months away from any sort of, some real regulation that we can use to maybe help with ETF rollouts. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:So our next topic, we've talked a little bit about this in the past. So Bitcoin being put on the balance sheet, there was a vote that was gonna happen, by the Microsoft shareholders about putting having Microsoft put it on its, balance sheet. That vote happened yesterday, on Tuesday, I believe, and they voted it down. Admittedly, I'm not surprised. I don't think it has any business being in a business balance sheet outside of if it actually has utility.
Robert Swarthout:And granted, I'm a bit of a utility maximalist in that sense, but they voted it down. And literally the same day, the Amazon shareholders are requesting the board consider it to put on their balance sheets. I'm like, are we gonna get a different story out of Amazon? I guess that provides the dynamic. Also, does Microsoft put it up for a revote?
Robert Swarthout:I don't know. It's just kinda fascinating to kinda see this play out. And maybe this whole idea of it being on corporate balance sheets, is a bit of a not not a big rocket. It's just a little bitty ball rocket that goes off and, like, there's not much fanfare, because not many of them pick it up. So it'd be my guess.
Andres Sandate:Here's the thing. I I this is one where I would I'd like to dig in and do a little more research. And the reason is if you look at the top holders of most of the stocks on the S and P 500, most of those holders are big institutional money managers. Right? So they're the like of BlackRock and Vanguard and, Deleti, who are ironically also some of the biggest issuers of Bitcoin.
Andres Sandate:So what what to me is kind of interesting is when you step back and you look at the corporate governance and you look at, organizations like ISS, the Institutional Shareholder Services group that runs proxies and kind of votes or at least recommends or weigh in kind of publicly on behalf shareholders, like, what they want the board to do. I just haven't dug in enough on this, but it's, but but it is interesting that a lot of the big asset managers, particularly in the case of, like, a BlackRock or Fidelity, they're in crypto now, and and, they've got products. So Yeah. This is gonna be something to follow-up with. I'm gonna I'm gonna do a little bit more digging and and research as I wanna come back and see what these corporate treasuries are thinking.
Robert Swarthout:Sounds good. Our second to last topic, I think I forget if we mentioned it in a previous episode, but Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, had done this interview with 60 minutes on CBS. They had recorded it. They haven't aired it yet. Well, it ended up airing this last Sunday at 7 PM.
Robert Swarthout:And, admittedly, when I was making notes for this episode, I thought about calling it a crypto hit piece. It didn't seem terribly crypto positive. As much as Brad tried to be positive about crypto, because he is, they recorded him for a long period of time. The whole thing got edited down to a total of 7 to 8 minutes, And the CBS didn't appear to be interested in doing fact checking because they had John Reed Shark, or excuse me, Stark, not Shark, that used to be at the SEC on. He basically was using Gensler's talking points about how there's it's clear, there's noncompliance, blah blah blah.
Robert Swarthout:And it's just just it is tiring. I feel like we can pass this, and, here we go. But if you can watch it online. If you're curious, you can go to CBS and look for the crypto piece. They tried to explain it.
Robert Swarthout:At the end of the day, I I think this is basically a nonevent because the people that are watching CBS 60 minutes are probably the older crowd. They're likely to buy an ETF anyways. They're not going to Coinbase to buy stuff. And then the younger crowd is not watching CBS, so they weren't influenced. So I, we talked about it, but again, we could have left it off and it probably didn't matter.
Andres Sandate:The let down to me. Yeah. It was a let down to me. Like, I think I shared this with you. I mean, I'm I'm 46, and I grew up 60 minutes was the the you know, you watch CBS Sunday afternoon football, and it was always a couple big juicy stories advertised in that 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock game that you wanted to watch.
Andres Sandate:Right? And I just there's there's I think it's just that somewhat the show is a little bit of a casualty of the times we're in. They they, you know, they they try to come up with a really interesting and juicy topic, and then it just they just didn't to me, they just didn't do a really good job of doing that investigative journalism that I used to think about. It's it was so one-sided. They could've gotten 6 or 7 more interesting people to weigh in.
Andres Sandate:They could've you know, they said 90 minutes special edition. I'm thinking okay. We're gonna get a commercial do that. I mean, I yeah. It was a let down.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. I, you know, I feel like I understand crypto. I, like, remember watching it, then after it was over, I was like, so what was the point of this? Like, it didn't feel terribly educational. And I'm again, I even now, I can't quite explain what the whole point of the 7 minutes was.
Robert Swarthout:So, anyways, we we won't waste any more of our airtime, and we'll move on with this one. So, the last one so I have to I guess, it's a bit of an apology to start with this last one. Last week, we said it had been approved and it was launching soon. Well, guess what? We're gonna say the same thing this week.
Robert Swarthout:It wasn't, but we're gonna say at the same time, it wasn't approved last week. We found out after the fact. It it was approved yesterday on 9th supposed to be on 10th, and should be launching in the next couple days. There's already some exchanges talking about enabling it, so it feels I would imagine maybe by the end of the week we, get this stable coin launched. And it will be interesting to see how fast it grows, because there's plenty especially, people from the Bitcoin community that just do not like Ripple.
Robert Swarthout:They do not like XRP. I think it it'll be fascinating to kinda see how they feel about it when there's all of a sudden a Ripple stable coin and XRP in the top ten, because that, to me, seems like it will happen relatively quickly, and just just kinda see how they, deal with that moment.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, the the the timing of it and that it's it's coming, you know, and it's obviously in New York. You put all this together, again, I think you circle back to some of the things we talked about at the very beginning. A lot of momentum is what I see. A lot of momentum.
Andres Sandate:You know, we talked about the market feels a little bit FOMO driven right a little less commercial utility driven. But, yeah, the next 12, 24, 36 months for crypto, given all the things that are happening in terms of regulation and, results of the elections, etcetera, it it it does, you know, it does make for it does make for an environment where, investors, and people that are, you know, interested in what's going on in the space have to really pay attention. So I'm glad we're doing these. It's and, I'm I'm looking forward to I'm sure you are too, Robert,
Robert Swarthout:of
Andres Sandate:being able to break down some of the things that we see over the next few months and and and years because, there's not a lot of places. You know, you go to crypto, get news. There's, you know, there's not a lot of places to really get it get that breakdown so I've come to realize like there's there's a lot of opportunity that we sit on here to sort of share insight.
Robert Swarthout:Yep, absolutely. Well thanks for joining us on this episode of Weekly Crypto Check-in. If you want to stay updated on future episodes, you can find us at any podcast player by searching Teton Crypto Capital or the Weekly Crypto Check-in. Take care.
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