New York morning trade.
We are looking at Bitcoin as well as the higher with Bitcoin up over 2% and up by about 5%.
Now in terms of the nation's capital, we're keeping an eye on what's happening as we head into the midterms later this year.
A social media post from Trump calling on Congress to pass the Clarity Act in honor of late Senator Lindsey Graham.
Now Republicans filling Graham's vacant seat yesterday with his sister.
Meanwhile here in New York City this Friday, the.
House Financial Services Committee will be holding a hearing to examine the digital assets bill while White House crypto adviser Patrick also saying that this week is critical for a legislation.
Lawmakers set to go on summer recess in on August 7th.
Well joining me this morning to weigh in on what's happening in digital assets is Dave Laval, who's president of Coin desk Data and indices. great to have you back for joining me.
So great to be here.
How are you doing very well.
Well, here we are kicking off the second half of 2. and we're keeping an eye on legislation as well as the regulatory landscape.
So do you think clarity will pass?
Oh goodness.
So you know Congress back in session.
You know, I've gone up and down on this.
This is a really, really critical week as you just mentioned to get some progress with the Clarity Act.
I still have some cautious optimism, but I think we're going to see in the next few days whether we're going to get some progress or not.
What I also, you know, remind everybody is that obviously kind of legislative movement from the Clarity Act perspective would be the most kind of future proof step forward for, you know, digital assets or crypto more generally, but we also have the opportunity for you know regulatory rulemaking, so CFTC rulemaking or SEC rulemaking that would also be a really good kind of impetus and a step in the right direction to ensure the rules of the road are defined for broad institutions to come in.
We obviously want legislation, but in the absence of legislation, I think we'll see some progress with rulemaking.
Chair Selig, you know, Chair Atkins, they're both, you know, probably just waiting to see if we get any sort of legislative movement before they kind of turn to rulemaking as a path forward.
Yes, well, the countdown is on and all of us will be monitoring any announcements that come through, but when it comes to what we're seeing in terms of price action this morning, we are looking at Bitcoin as well as higher, and this has come on the heels of positive inflows last week for.
ETFs, but as we move forward, there's a lot of volatility expected.
So what do you make of what we're seeing right now?
Well, look, I think it's, you know, the conversation that we're having with the ETFs in particular.
Remember, you know, it's been 2.5 years since the ETFs came online, but only very recently have they been onboarded some of the largest wealth management platforms.
And so that allows for advisers to incorporate Bitcoin or Ethereum into their clients' portfolios, utilizing the.
ETFs as kind of critical building blocks and so it's not surprising to me to see some inflows.
I think there was a little bit of an overreaction several weeks ago when there were large outflows coming out of some of the more kind of institutional products, but we have seen consistently with the low cost and low fee products coming out of Greyscale or or Morgan Stanley consistent inflows because again these are investment products and the advisory teams and advisory platforms are starting to, you know.
Incorporate them into their clients' portfolios in a more regular way.
So I'm not surprised to see the inflows coming in.
And also with this kind of crypto winter versus previous winters, it's really more about where's my entry point as opposed to, you know, Bitcoin is going to zero or crypto is dead.
So I think it's all very positive, but obviously the price action would tell you that it's a little bit, little bit bleak out there.
Yes, and Dave, you mentioned the crypto winner and what a difference.
A year makes because we have come off those highs for Bitcoin as well as, but you mentioned a few keywords here and that is institutional adoption as well as infrastructure.
So as we head into the rest of Q3 as well as Q4, what are the themes that you are watching?
This is a very funny thing that I was talking to a colleague about last week, which is some strange indicator.
I've had more kind of teams calls than I've had over the past.
1.5 or 2 years, and I recognize that the team's calls are utilized by very large scale institutions that have Microsoft incorporated into their infrastructure, and I realized when I looked through my calendar, oh my gosh, large scale, you know, bulge bracket global firms are now coming to Coin desk asking for support with their indices, you know, asking for support with their data infrastructure, and so the infrastructure and the institutional adoption. is a little bit different than some of that institutional adoption that you and I have talked about in the past, and it's really actually about really large scale firms making sure that they're positioned because they feel like the regulatory and or legislative tailwind is going to push digital assets Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana over the finish line, and they're really going to need to be positioned to answer the call and the demand from their clients.
So I know it's kind of a silly anecdote, but it really was something that really struck me last week.
And finally, Dave, before I let you go, we have about 60 seconds here.
So following the recent consensus conference, the narrative among wealth managers has shifted.
So what are you hearing right now and what should financial advisers be telling their clients right now?
Yes, I mean we saw two real key themes, you know, institutional adoption, which I also think is kind of the advisory adoption, and then the convergence of Trad with crypto.
The advisors are now, you know.
Wide awake to the reality that their clients are demanding digital asset strategy.
That's not to say that every client should have Bitcoin and Ethereum in their client's portfolio, but every client wants their advisor to be able to kind of instruct them on how to think about digital assets and incorporating it in their client's portfolio.
It's a tremendous amount of education that's necessary.
Places like Coindusk.com can really actually help you be that source of education for advisory platforms and then.
Start to have a conversation with their clients that you know can help educate their clients.
Advisers are worried that their clients are in fact more educated than they are on this topic and so it's really incumbent upon the clients to, you know, futureproof their franchise by ensuring they have, you know, the ability to talk credibly about digital assets.
Well Dave, always great talking to you.
Thank you so much for joining me here and thank you so much for your perspective.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Dave.
