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Topics covered on this episode:
- FDIC giving guidance
- Georgia (country) rolls out Hedera
- Bank of America clients’ crypto allocation
- Strategy in trouble?
- Singapore expands Ripple’s license
- Crypto market since October 10th
- Kraken files for IPO
- Greyscale files for IPO
Creators and Guests
Host
What is Weekly Crypto Check-In?
Hosts Robert Swarthout and Andres Sandate cover the last week's worth of crypto news, providing insights and opinions on this quickly evolving space from a fund managers perspective.
Welcome to the weekly crypto check-in, your go to podcast for navigating the wild world of cryptocurrency hosted by Robert Swartel and Andres Sedate. Today, recorded on December 3, we're diving into the latest crypto market shifts, blockchain breakthroughs, and expert insights to keep you ahead of the curve. How's it going, Andres?
Andres Sandate:Good, Robert. I just got back into Atlanta. I was away for the holidays and for a family funeral, and so got back in today. You know, followed what's happening in in crypto and, you know, just more broadly in the markets. So good to be back on the air, and hopefully, you've been well and had a good holiday.
Robert Swarthout:I did. Yeah. We were at home, which was nice. We originally supposed to go out of town, but that got changed. And then we were at home and kind of this wonky weather in here in Atlanta, 10 to 15 degrees cooler than normal is.
Robert Swarthout:I'm ready for the warmer temps to come back for a bit if we can get them. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Well, I'd say a lot of people in crypto and digital assets are probably wishing we were not in a what feels like a little bit of a crypto thaw or crypto winter as a as they call it in the industry. So we'll cover that today. But Yeah. I know you've got the second this the the the the the second one.
Andres Sandate:There we go. So we're gonna start off with the FDIC. I thought this was interesting. I know everybody wants to probably hear us talk about what's going on in crypto and what's going on with strategy, which we'll get to later. But let's start off with this FDIC headline.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. You know, this is certainly not the sexiest headline, but you know? So in 2025, earlier in the year, we got the the Genius Act passed. That was legislation around stablecoins, how they can be constructed, who gets to keep the interest, who cannot get the interest. We've gone through this many times, but so that's all, you know, cruising along.
Robert Swarthout:So the FTSC basically said that they will soon be giving guidance around tokenized deposits or just kind of, like, what a what what money's gonna look like in this digital currency world when it comes to cash, which obviously is near and dear to their heart. So it's it's cool. I mean, you know, I kind of didn't expect this to be coming, but at the same point, it makes total sense that it's here. It's one of the things you don't really think. I don't I don't spend too much time thinking about the FDIC, personally.
Robert Swarthout:But it's a, you know, it's a fundamental building block of where this is all going, having tokenized deposits and what that means. I the part that I get excited about around this is it helps give, to me, transparency over time to the system because it's gonna be on a public ledger. And in theory, you know, like, when you go back to the financial crisis, everything was very opaque. You didn't know who owed what to who and all this good stuff without actually seeing the contracts. Well, here, this would be on a blockchain, and you can kind of feel to see, maybe a bit of a digital trail.
Robert Swarthout:So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. And, you know, one thing that I doing some research on this one, that I I guess I I thought stuck out was the fact that it's, you know, this shift in approach. Right? So now it's about the risk management that the institution can put in place, to ensure effectively that that they can participate and want to participate and protect consumers versus a, a permission based approach, which, you know, prevented a lot of institutions from being willing even to invest in the resources, the people, the technology, all the testing. So I think this does you know, removing this, like, preapproval approach should, hopefully, just from a posture standpoint, clarify a lot of things for banks and their their their leadership teams, if you will, to put in place a lot of the the rails to, you know, really get digital money moving.
Andres Sandate:Right.
Robert Swarthout:You know, it's a you know, for the most part, Americans don't think about money not working. Right? It generally works consistently. You're you know, every time you go to do tap to pay or credit card, or debit card, it works. But even you know, there's things like efficiencies that can come along with tokenized deposits.
Robert Swarthout:I was actually did a wire today from one account to another account that I have, and I was actually impressed. The domestic wire system was about an hour, you know, and it happened all, obviously, in the same business day. So, you know, an hour seems fast, in ancient terms. In crypto, it seems like forever. Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:So we'll see kinda how those kinda shift over time. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, I I think that the yeah. That the, you know, this genius act, right, the the proposals that are sort of working their way through through congress, hopefully, we'll see things start to come together. I I did a lot of, I guess, research over the last, you know, week and a half just to see, you know, is the bill I'm gonna say dead. Is it stalled?
Andres Sandate:And is it indefinitely, or is it not? But it's good to see there's these regulators doing things in the background. Because now that the legislation is at least past the house, got out of the house and is in the senate, hopefully, the what the the regulatory bodies continue to work in the background and optimistically, it comes together over the next, you know, month or two.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. I I'm optimistic to your point that it will happen. The government shutdown did not help anything in that regards. It definitely puts took some wind out of the sales there, but I I think it'll get kicked back into gear probably after the first year, be my guess. So we will see.
Robert Swarthout:So we'll move on to our second topic. So we're talking about Georgia and not the state. We're talking about the country here. Is rolling out the use of Hedera. So Hedera is another l one blockchain.
Robert Swarthout:The ticker for that token on that blockchain is HBAR. But the use case here is the country is gonna use it for basically, an well, they've signed a memorandum of understanding. So it's not fully happening yet, but, basically, they include land registries, national records, and some smart contract services for the government. But I think the big point here is is it's gonna be for the, you know, like, basically, property deeds for all intents. I don't know if they call them that there, but that's what we would refer to them at here at home.
Robert Swarthout:So
Andres Sandate:it's cool. Yeah. Me yeah. Government, you know, government wide adoption. We've talked about this now for probably a couple of years even prior to us launching this weekly crypto check-in that we felt like this was an opportunity where you'd see real estate transactions move onto the blockchain, and it was just a matter of, you know, the potential of it.
Andres Sandate:Would it would it get realized and where? And, you know, we've we've talked about the competitive dynamics in The US and some of the challenges, I think, that crypto's had in being adopted from government institutions and enterprises. You're seeing that, you know, small country of Georgia is stepping out. No surprise. Mhmm.
Andres Sandate:I think a lot of people will be watching to see how it goes. And and and certainly, from a policy standpoint, you know, there's a there's a lot more auditability and there's a lot more, you know, you would think cost savings and and inefficiencies here than traditional systems and all the costs associated with it doing it, you know, the the the more traditional way.
Robert Swarthout:A 100%. You said maybe put some numbers around this to give some context. You know, this is a big deal, but it's it's still a small deal at the same point. So Georgia, the country, manages more than three and a half million property records. The real estate market in the country is valued at 16 to 20,000,000,000.
Robert Swarthout:So, you know, we have metro areas in The US that are worth more than that Yeah. Perspective. Even if only 1% of it was tokenized, which sounds like all of it will be, but 1%. So a 160 to 200,000,000 would be on Hedera in that case. And an interesting number is McKinsey has estimated by 2030, so call it five years from now, the global real estate tokenization on chain of real estate will be 5 to 7,000,000,000,000.
Robert Swarthout:This is not even a drop in the bucket at this point. We're a long ways off, but it I imagine it's gonna come pretty heavy and fast when it does. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, you're seeing the impact AI is having on, you know, the real estate sector from the standpoint of just every everyday things like underwriting and modeling, etcetera. And you have to think from the standpoint of property records, you know, all all the all the all the paperwork, I guess, is the the the simple way to say it. Like, all the paperwork and auditability and and and all the systems that go into tracking real estate transactions and and ownership, etcetera, transfer of ownership. I I mean, all that stuff is ripe for me to Mhmm.
Andres Sandate:To move on chain. So, this is neat. That's that's a cool headline.
Robert Swarthout:Yep. Awesome. Well, our third topic is it's kind of a bit of a snippet. We don't have tons to talk about here. But so Bank of America is projecting that clients that wanna do crypto in managed portfolios by Bank of America are gonna be in a one to 4% allocation of digital assets.
Robert Swarthout:What what is not clear is whether it's gonna be just ETFs or if they're gonna start doing tokenized excuse me, tokens directly. My guess is it's more ETFs to begin with, and maybe over time, they would allow some direct ownership. But it's cool to kinda see the the these big these big institutions start to talk about it more because it had kinda gotten quiet on this front. Hadn't heard too much about it. Now it seems to be, at least in Bank of America's case, kinda coming back up.
Robert Swarthout:So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, from a, you know, adviser retail, investor standpoint, right, the the headlines the last few weeks and especially in recent days with all the volatility and all the discussion about global macro policy and what the Fed's gonna do and, you know, what, you know, what's gonna happen with interest rates. It's it's certainly had an impact on risk assets, including digital assets, crypto, Bitcoin, etcetera. Mhmm. These kinds of pronouncements from these major institutions are are months in the making.
Andres Sandate:So, you know, a lot of people might be looking at this headline and saying, well, why would anybody, you know, have a one to four percent allocation of crypto when Bitcoin's down, you know, touched the low eighties after being at a, you know, high of $1.15, $1.20?
Robert Swarthout:Right.
Andres Sandate:But, the whole notion of asset allocation when you talk about individuals and talk about investing and and and even all the way up through large institutions, I mean, the notion that, you're gonna time the market is is really foreign to how, people manage, you know, capital, if you will, from the standpoint of these big institutions. I mean, they're asset allocating, and there's a there's a there's a model put together. And so they're setting this model at one to 4%, but I think it comes down to, right, ultimately, the client's gonna have to have, like, some longer term horizon, and they're gonna have to accept the volatility that comes with crypto at least in the near term because it is a volatile asset class. But it does feel like it's in line with kinda where a lot of the other institutions have sort of pegged crypto exposure at one to 4%. I haven't seen anybody come out and say five to 10.
Andres Sandate:Right. So it feels like one, two, 3% is kind of the, you know, the the standard in the industry right now.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. You you know, it's I don't have perfect data to back this up, but, you know, the times you start to hear about bigger percentage of allocations is when prices are up. Yeah. Probably not the right time.
Andres Sandate:Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Right. And these smaller numbers are when prices are low. Maybe they should invert those too.
Andres Sandate:Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:But but the part that I didn't share about this is so this is not just Bank of America direct. It's through the Merrill, the private bank through Merrill portion of it. Yeah. And this will start in January. And, know, initially, it's just Bitcoin ETFs, which just seems absolutely silly to me.
Robert Swarthout:You can at a minimum, you could throw Ethereum, and now there's even Altcoins. There's XRP. There's Hadeira. There's a Doge one out there. So it's it seems a little bit shortsighted, but I'm sure it'll change every time.
Robert Swarthout:So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. You'd you'd think that as the, I guess, the research teams begin to understand some of the other technologies and some of the, you know, use cases of some of the other tokens that the, I guess, the recommendation set would broaden. This is kind of like saying you can invest in a chip company, but you can only invest in, you know, one chip company. You can Correct. Or you can invest in one, you know, utility company but not have exposure to eight or 10 different publicly traded utility companies.
Andres Sandate:It's kinda the way I think about it. So, hopefully, it will expand over time, you know, just for the sake of the industry. And it should bring some fresh capital, you know, at a time when, you know, there has been a lot of profit taking and there has been a lot of Yep. Folks that, you know, had leverage bets on, you know, that they've had wiped out. So fresh capital into this space would would help at any at any given time, but certainly in a period like we're in here and we've been in the last, you know, few weeks.
Robert Swarthout:Yep. Well, that's probably a very good segue to our next topic. So strategy or formerly known as MicroStrategy, you know, the the headline here says, is strategy in trouble? I it's more of proposing a question we don't necessarily know the perfect answer to, but you know? So they some things that we do know about strategy.
Robert Swarthout:Right? They are the single biggest holder of Bitcoin in the world outside of Satoshi. So they have just over 650,000 Bitcoin that they hold today. It's worth $55,900,000,000 or give or take. Obviously, Bitcoin's always changing.
Robert Swarthout:The interesting thing here is the market currently valued MicroStrategy, the equity market, currently values them at 45.7. So you have a delta of roughly $10,000,000,000 that the market is valuing. It's I don't know. It's interesting scenario.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. The stocks were less than the the assets on the balance sheet.
Robert Swarthout:Right. And an asset that is very liquid. It's not like it's Yeah. They hold stock in some other company, you don't know how that how that's valued. This is pretty interesting to kinda see how it's playing out.
Robert Swarthout:So the in some sense, this topic can be looped into what would be our six topic crypto market since October 10 because MicroStrategy is down, and they're down a lot this year. Particularly over the last since October 6, they're down 57%. That that's a huge drop in a share price in in a, basically, a two month period.
Andres Sandate:Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:And, what used to be a premium is now, you're getting it at a discount if you're buying the MicroStrategy for the Bitcoin. And I it's just a crazy world we live in. Their their their average cost basis all their Bitcoin is 74,000 and change. So they're above that. Bitcoin's trading at 93 today.
Robert Swarthout:A week ago, bit Bitcoin was in the mid to low eighties. I don't know if they were getting nervous yet, but that that margin of error got really small there pretty quickly. So And and, yeah, they went
Andres Sandate:out and raised some fresh capital. Correct. Yeah. Strategy did, the company. They raised about a billion and a half dollars here in the last, what, week or so.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. You yep. Exactly. And it's
Andres Sandate:midst the holidays, you know, when when, you know, when No one paid attention. But, yeah, I was gonna say when when people are I guess, they're still focused on what's happening in the markets, but there's, you know, there's holidays. There's trading shifts around a little bit. Trading hours are are different. They raised a billion and a half dollars, giving them, you know, somewhat of a additional war chest in the event that Bitcoin prices continue to fall.
Andres Sandate:But what the CEO, not Michael Saylor, came out and said, I don't know if the market was spooked by those comments because he said, you know, we would have this capital available in the event that bit Bitcoin prices fall. Right? Well, because they are the largest holder outside of Satoshi, it sort of created this loop. At least the market reacted. You know?
Andres Sandate:Right. The the market was spooked and the price fell further. So, yeah, it's it's tenuous right now. Right? There was a lot of products created around the strategy Yeah.
Andres Sandate:Stock. Right? You you you also had indexes that had to shift around their components, meaning the S and P indexes because the market cap just exploded there for a while earlier this year, and they had to add it to the index. Right? So you now had this extremely volatile stock in the index, which is really tied just to the underlying Bitcoin.
Andres Sandate:Yep. And now a lot of those same indexes, are they not revisiting whether or not this whole company is, if you will, a traditional company or a stock or it's a fund holding Mhmm. Or it's a fund. So there's a lot to still unpack, I think.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. So in on top of this so kinda looping back real quick, the 1 and a half billion dollars they raised, they're setting this aside as a cash reserve. So they have roughly, I think, twenty two months, twenty three months
Andres Sandate:Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Of cash on hand to be able to pay the the preferred dividend Prefer dividend. Share class that they've sold. It it seems like a messy situation that and unless Bitcoin really recovers, it potentially only gets worse over time for them. So, you know, I don't generally cheer for companies to go out of business or have trouble, but this one, to me, has been toxic for the crypto industry. There's Bitcoin proponents are gonna say the exact opposite, but it's a it's interesting to kinda see the beginnings of what I thought might happen actually happen here.
Robert Swarthout:So, anyways Well,
Andres Sandate:yeah, it one thing I will be watching, I guess, here, there are now enough institutional investors, large global asset managers, governments, and now you would even argue, you know, the president
Robert Swarthout:Mhmm.
Andres Sandate:That are all tied into crypto. They're all tied in now much deeper. You just look at the headlines we talked about. Right? So, you know, if you go back and look at what happened to, you know, long term capital management.
Andres Sandate:Right? You Mhmm. Different situation, which had a highly leveraged fund that ended up having to get bailed out in order to sort of save the financial system. And that was that was the the argument. Right?
Andres Sandate:So you had all these banks that had to come together and, agree to sort of bail out long term capital management because they had these leveraged positions on. And I'm just I'm I'm gonna think that there has to be some, let's say, higher powers that are paying attention. Right? Mhmm. Regulators, larger larger stakeholders, if you will, beyond shareholders that are watching this just to see just what kind of trouble this, company could get in if, you know, in fact, Bitcoin
Robert Swarthout:Right.
Andres Sandate:Were to nosedive. Right? Right. Since tested the eighties, I think it was at 83,000, you know, said today it's back up above 90. But, certainly, you know, it it's it's it's it's tenuous, like I said.
Robert Swarthout:Right. And, you know, heck, it jumps, I think, roughly to eight to 10%. Was it yesterday or the day before? Just on the suspicion of news that Trump had picked his new Fed chair, and the assumption is rates are coming down and Right. More money in the system.
Robert Swarthout:So I Yeah.
Andres Sandate:You know,
Robert Swarthout:it's it's it's complicated. Yeah. So we'll we're gonna jump to our sixth topic and come back to our fifth one because I think we'll kinda stay on topic by doing that. Okay. So the crypto market since October 10 has been nothing to write home about.
Robert Swarthout:It's been pretty crappy.
Andres Sandate:Volatile and and crappy.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. Volatile to the downside. There's no volatile to the upside in this in this market. Yeah. And for the longest time, it just felt different than our sale sell offs because it just felt so consistent.
Robert Swarthout:Other sell offs, you might have a recovery day. Right? This was just day after day or maybe if anything, it took a breather and didn't do anything, and then it went down the third day. But then somebody made made a post that I found rather interesting. So MicroStrategy, kinda looping that back in here, is probably would would probably coin themselves as a debt, a digital asset treasury company more than anything else.
Robert Swarthout:There's ones popping up that are doing SPAC transactions so they can go public. There's one for XRP that recently happened. So they're becoming more and more. Or just generally traded companies are putting digital assets on their balance sheets, so they're kind of this blend or this this weird combination of companies. Nevertheless, so the group let me get their name right.
Robert Swarthout:It is the MSCI, the world's second biggest index company. Yep. They basically came out and questioned whether companies that hold crypto assets as their core business should be considered companies or funds. I think it's a fair question. I I would you know, off off the cuff, I would say if you think you're a dad, you're probably a fund.
Robert Swarthout:You're not a company. But, you know, that's my opinion, and probably worth the 2¢ or maybe even less. But at the end of the day, what what happened here was this was on October 10. They came out with this announcement. That that began the sell off that we've experienced for basically the last two months.
Robert Swarthout:And it looked like, if you wanna say it's smart money, Sol, maybe the writing on the wall is like, this is not gonna go well, at least in the short term, and they got out of it. That's why MicroStrategy is down a bunch, 57%, since then and other you know, the crypto prices have followed. Largely Bitcoin, and then the rest of crypto just follows Bitcoin. But it's it's been it's been a not very exciting last two months. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. There's a lot of, there's there's a lot of downside volatility. We we've seen, I mentioned it earlier. There's been a lot of, you know, leverage bets that have been blown out. And so you've seen, you know, some steady inflows of ETFs, but there's there hasn't been this resurgence of, I'd say, massive flows into ETFs like there were earlier in the year, certainly spring and summer.
Andres Sandate:Mhmm. You can't deny the fact that, you know, there's more of a risk off post posture positioning, just generally, from from the standpoint of more risky assets. And I think some of that is tied into, you know, uncertainty around earnings with, you know, the market largely dominated by a handful of just big tech companies, AI exposure. It was a lot of headlines last two weeks about is the AI boom, you know, over. And even though earnings for NVIDIA and some of the other big tech companies held up, I think a lot of that is you know, you you put it all together, and it just leads to a lot of uncertainty.
Andres Sandate:And if you're thinking about where do I park money, you know, people's first place is maybe not as much exposure into the riskiest assets out there. Correct. It's it's maybe into things like dividend paying stocks and, you know, let's call it, quote, unquote, safe havens. All to say, you know, is this is this a buy the dip type of scenario? Because we could have regulation on the horizon.
Andres Sandate:We could have, you know, if you look at some of these headlines, you you could have, you know, this more secular Mhmm. Shift happening. That's a multiyear, more multi decade long kind of expansion of digital assets and crypto, it's a it's a tough, you know, place for, I'd say, an individual investor or an adviser to sort of try to navigate because they wanna look smart to their client. They wanna look like they didn't put their client into something that you know, even if it's a long term hold, psychology would be suggest that people are gonna call the broker tomorrow, and they're gonna say to he or she, hey. What what are you doing here?
Andres Sandate:You know? My my you just lost me 10%. So there's a lot lot to contend with. And I I guess I'd ask you because you've been through multiple cycles, you know, just to kind of go one step further. You know, what what's your take overall?
Andres Sandate:Is this a crypto thawing, a crypto winter? And how does it line up with, like, prior cycles?
Robert Swarthout:It's a great question. The lining up with prior cycles, I think that narrative is starting to break. For better or for worse, we'll find out as history goes on here. But the what I think is happening is the market gets so excited about the stablecoin legislation that moved along. We were kind of full steam ahead with when it came to the market structure bill.
Robert Swarthout:Obviously, that that hasn't happened yet, and it's taken a lot longer than I think even the medium hopeful people would think. Again, the government shutdown did not help. I I think we're kind of in this holding pattern, albeit a bit of a downward one that feels like a small little bear market cycle. I I don't think it's fully blown. I I don't describe it as a bear market cycle, but I think I I use those words to illustrate it.
Robert Swarthout:And I think that, you know, we're we're unlikely to finish this year in a super positive way, at least sentiment wise. But I think the first quarter or first half of next year, things could get back on track and be more exciting. So if anything, it's just kind of maybe a a time out of sorts. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Well, I have certainly a lot a lot to cover, and I'm sure we'll do at least one more, you know, update in December.
Andres Sandate:So, you know, the way these things go from week to week, you know, you're you're a you're a couple of headlines or a couple of announcements away from from sentiment shifting.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. I mean, you know, there's some, I guess, there may seem crazy ideas floating around out there, but, like, you know, with this administration, I know, like, what's off actually off the table. I don't know. But, like, there's a rumor speculation that because it had come up in the past. It it's kinda bubbled back up this last week that maybe the Trump administration would push for no capital gains taxes on crypto.
Robert Swarthout:You know, I I I don't think that that would get across the finish line, but does some form of it get across the finish line? Maybe. I don't know. It's but, again, that's one of those things that can send the market up five or 10% in an hour, and then we kinda bleed down 15% the next two days. So Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah.
Andres Sandate:Well and I think this is also you know, my my last comment on this crypto, you know, sort of performance or crypto market since since, you know, late fall would be you know, there's a lot of other debate happening around the health of The US economy. And even just looking at retail spending, you know, for, you know, the holiday season. Right? That that is a much bigger topic, bigger headline than say what what's happening necessarily Mhmm. You know, in in crypto.
Andres Sandate:I know that we are a crypto focused, you know, news update show, but to to think that crypto isn't gonna be tied into what's happening in the broader economy It's not It's just it's gonna be. It's gonna be tied in. And and I think there's still a pretty healthy debate about how healthy is the economy. Right? And there's a lot of questions out there about about data and is the data that we're gonna see here Real.
Andres Sandate:Reliable because of the shutdown? And so all those types of things have to play out, and we have to find kinda see how's The US consumer doing, what's the sentiment of the consumer. Obviously, the Fed's watching, you know, jobs, and they're watching, you know, that unemployment rate and trying to determine, right, how how healthy is our economy. And that's gonna dictate a lot of probably the near term meeting the next month to ninety days of what happens in in crypto.
Robert Swarthout:Yep. Could not agree more. So we're gonna jump back to our fifth topic here. So this should be pretty quick. Singapore has expanded Ripple's license that they had to be able to do payments in the region, basically enabling them to do end to end fully licensed payment services in and out of the country.
Robert Swarthout:Before, it was a little bit more restrictive. Now it sounds like they it's, like, off to the races. I think you're gonna see a lot more of this in 2026. A lot of these not a lot. Some of these companies that have had licenses around the world have been in this, I guess what do you even call it, trial period, but, like, they had they had a minimal license, and now starting to see some of these licenses get broadened and countries build to kinda be able to fully utilize the benefits of this stuff is cool to see.
Andres Sandate:So Yeah. Yeah. It's just one of the things that we've, you know, we've talked about, just the competitiveness. Some of the countries are really wanting to be out there and ahead. And and, you know, The US, just, you know, to pick on us a little bit, like, we're still trying to kinda get our house in order.
Andres Sandate:We're a much bigger, you know, economy. There's, you know, there's a lot of of competing interests, but there's, you know, there's something to, you know, to look at here and and, I guess, be kind of wishful in the sense of Right. Look at these countries and they kinda get their act together and they get moving. Hopefully, we'll see some of that sort of behavior and motivation from from, you know, our legislators and regulators over the next month or two.
Robert Swarthout:Yep. Fingers crossed. Cool. Well, our last two topics, basically, are the same bucket. So two different companies, Kraken and Grayscale, both filed to go, public.
Robert Swarthout:They're still in the, I guess, paperwork stage of this. No one is actually trading yet. And my guess is maybe not even in December. I don't know if December is a good time to do this or bad time to do this. It feels like an odd time to me because people are not paying attention as much.
Robert Swarthout:Yeah. But, you know and again, it's with the current pricing that we've seen the last sixty days of of you know, especially in Kraken's case. Right? I mean, they're they're an exchange. When the prices are down, there's a lot less trading, so they have a lot less fees coming through the door for them.
Andres Sandate:Yeah.
Robert Swarthout:Seems like an oddly weird time to choose to do this. So
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I agree. I I don't see these happening in the current crypto environment, so I think it's gonna come down to, you know, the bankers and lawyers are gonna probably tell the, you know, the the CEOs and boards of these companies it's you know, it it you would not be received as well if you were to go out now. You could probably raise some money, but it it'd be much better for you to wait until there's a little bit more clarity. So, yeah, I agree with you.
Robert Swarthout:And and, again, I don't think they're having to wait long. I mean, like, even on the long side, six months. Like, I don't think it's long. It's, you know, Grayscale, obviously, is not in the exchange business. They're in the product business where they sell these ETFs and trust products.
Robert Swarthout:So we'll have to see how it all goes, but it's, you know, cool. You know, at least at least the IPO flywheel is at least somewhat spinning. And for a while, was really spinning with crypto, and I think we'll see it kinda catch back up and get in the year in the first quarter first half of next year.
Andres Sandate:Yeah. I mean, these are not things you can you can you can make happen in a matter of days and weeks. You know, these are months and quarters long events with the filings and requirements and roadshows, etcetera. So I I think they end up, you know, going public. It's just a matter of, you know, timing it.
Andres Sandate:You wanna have the best, you know, IPO, you know, performance that you can. So I I you know, we've built this business up over many years. You know, it seemed kinda silly to to rush out at a bad time.
Robert Swarthout:Yep. Could not agree more. Well, that's a wrap for this episode of the weekly crypto check-in. Keep updated with the current crypto insights by searching TITAN CryptoCapital or the weekly crypto check-in in your favorite cod podcast platform. Leave us a review or share your thoughts, or like our T Time Crypto Capital LinkedIn page for more updates.
Robert Swarthout:Until next time. Take care.
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