In Episode 16 of Layer One, The Block’s Kelvin Sparks is joined by Avalanche Treasury Company CEO Bart Smith. Bart explained the thesis behind treasury companies as a way to get regulated, permanent-capital exposure to AVAX and the Avalanche ecosystem. He also covers his Wall Street/ETF background, why real-world-asset tokenization needs "productive" assets to matter, and why he thinks crypto's investment thesis is stronger than ever.
OUTLINE
00:00 - Introduction
01:22 - What Is AVAT?
03:59 - Wall Street Roots & Crypto's Rise
06:19 - The Bitcoin ETF Bet
08:58 - Hiring a COO
11:13 - Why Own AVAT?
15:56 - Scaling Avalanche & RWAs
22:54 - DeFi, TradFi & AI Fears
33:03 - Policy Risks & RWA Forecast
40:08 - Closing Thoughts
Guest links:
Bart Smith -
https://twitter.com/gbartsmithAVAT -
https://twitter.com/avat_coHost links:
Kelvin Sparks - https://x.com/imyoungsparks
John Wu - https://x.com/John1wu
The Block - https://x.com/TheBlockCo
Ava Labs - https://x.com/avalabs
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