As the debate over digital assets on corporate balance sheets heats up, industry leaders are gathering behind closed doors in New York this week for the Bitcoin Treasuries Conference. Now, Zaslow Bank has built a unique architecture that allows high net worth individuals and corporates to manage U.S. dollars alongside native Bitcoin, pioneering ways to leverage digital assets as institutional collateral.
Well, joining us live on set here at the New York Stock Exchange to discuss institutional adoption as well as the shifting regulatory landscape is Joey Garcia, Executive Director and Chief Strategy, Policy and Regulatory Affairs at SAC Bank. Well, Joey, great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.
Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
While you have been on the road and attending plenty of gatherings, you're here in New York for the Bitcoin Treasuries Conference, and there has been a lot of focus, not just this week but in 2026, on institutional adoption. So give us a sense of where you stand and what you're seeing on the ground.
Look, I think what we're seeing is people who've been exploring this space are seeing it from a distance. They're getting much more closely involved when they start to do that. The initial question is always, who is my counterpart? Where can I place a degree of trust and reliance and security? And that can vary in lots of different ways.
For corporates, they're looking at sort of that history, that security, and not just on a technical or cryptographic level. How do you determine the different vectors of security around governance, around regulation, around the people? And that's, I think, where there are good important roles to be played by groups like us that have obviously been in the space since 2013.
Yeah. And I do want to get your take as we head into the final quarter of 2026, in terms of how wealthy or high net worth individuals out there are actually leveraging Bitcoin, because when we look at the price action for Bitcoin, whether year to date or last year until now, we are looking at the crypto market hovering right around the 83,500 level.
And that has obviously come down from the highs we saw at the end of last year, but we are still elevated given everything that's happened this year.
Yeah. Look, I mean, if you've been in this space long enough, you've seen the cycles, you've seen the highs and the lows. I've lived all of that, you know, $2,000. Everyone said it was crazy, $5,000, etc., etc. I think it's always going to be a long play if you believe in the value proposition and the sort of purpose of the network and what it was built to do, then you have to take that position.
I think though, some experts, corporates, etc., it's more than just price exposure and you need to start getting a little bit more into the nitty gritty. How can I put that value to work for me? And also what are the costs? So people who are gaining access to Bitcoin through corporate treasuries or whatever it might be, there are price fluctuations within those fee structures.
If it's in an ETF, there are different management fee structures. If it's BTC directly, there are different considerations. So the more serious guys are looking at the price vectors, they're looking at the functionality vectors and what they can actually do to put that value to work, and they're taking a long view.
I mean, it's not a question of putting 80% of your portfolio with exposure to BTC. But we've always said the same thing. You know, Morgan Stanley and these guys had that sort of 2 to 4% in a balanced portfolio matrix. We've been saying the case for 1% allocation to BTC since 2014 or 2015.
And that's the key, having exposure to a network and the belief that you think it's going to work. And I think we'll see that. We'll see a cleaner migration between the Bitcoin protocol and its mission and the rest of the crypto industry as well. But these are all factors of education, learning and development for lots of policymakers, for corporates, for high net worth, etc.
Yeah. And Joey, I do want to hear about the nitty gritty that you mentioned. And for the layperson out there, can you walk us through this? Because you and I are here at the New York Stock Exchange and we're talking about digital assets and crypto. So we have seen a lot of progress since 2024 when it comes to funds as well.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think what people sometimes don't have a degree, they tend to, and this is not just individuals. This can be corporates and governments, regulatory authorities as well. They tend to brand crypto in one simple bucket. The reality is it's absolutely nothing like that.
And I think there has to be that degree of learning and understanding of what the purpose of a protocol, a network was. So here on the New York Stock Exchange, there's been a lot of talk about tokenized securities and the efficiency matrix around the blockchain settlement system. That's great.
And it's wonderful. But sometimes people forget that that is effectively a closed loop use of the technology. The Bitcoin network is an open network. So to use a simple analogy for anyone that might be listening, you know, it's like creating a series of intranets to compete with the concept of the internet.
So the Bitcoin network is an open, permissionless, accessible network. And that is the true purpose of blockchain and decentralized technology. Lots of little control. Yeah. It's wonderful. It's great for the industry. It's wonderful for the use of the technology. But that's not what it was built for.
Yeah. And one other area I do want to get your take on is the regulatory landscape. So you have been working with the Bitcoin Policy Institute. So what is happening on the side of the Atlantic versus the other side? And where do you see the opportunities?
I think there's massive development. Obviously you've had the Clarity Act sort of, you know, phase or seizure if you want to call it. But I'd say the position in the US is fantastic from the point of view of there's so much clarity from the top. So Donald Trump, the president of the United States, love him or hate him, has a very, very clear view.
And that view seeps and filters down into every organizational authority grouping that everyone understands and takes that view. And that creates a really sort of positive landscape for the United States. In other parts of the world, you're seeing more kind of fractional sized approaches so that piece is understood.
Therefore, it needs to be illegal. It needs to be restricted. And that leads to this almost like two tiered system where you have a regulated environment and an unregulated environment. And that's not what we want. We want a merged, converged use of the technology and its access point. And that is something that the US, in its sort of mission statement is always super keen to support. And it's very, very clear for people who are listening to what's happening and getting their own scope.
And because you've been in this space for such a long time, when we're looking beyond just five years, say perhaps ten years, what role do you think Bitcoin has when it comes to wealth management?
Look, I think it's going to become a more and more natural fit or part of all balanced portfolios. I think that that's going to escalate and develop it because, I mean, there are lots of different. We could talk for hours around this. It is quite complex.
But I mean, if you think about the population of the globe today and we're talking about a sort of 4%, like 4% global exposure of people, 4% of the population with access to virtual assets.
It's a very, very small number. So, you know, we're still at sort of very much infancy levels. And you're talking about situations and environments where people are more currency sensitive, they're more FX sensitive. And, you know, the United States is a huge powerhouse.
But if you're domiciled in globes around the world and you start talking about Bitcoin price volatility, concerns that laugh in your face when you compare it to local currency concerns, so will it become the currency of the internet? Will it become the currency for generic AI integrated solutions and payments networks?
I don't know, but I think its functionality will continue to develop and gain more and more traction around the globe.
Yeah, yeah. And before I let you go, you highlighted some key perspectives there. And as you mentioned, when it comes to volatility, whether we're talking about inflation, because here in the US we might be looking at that 2% target. That is the Fed's mandate when it comes to inflation. But when we're looking at other economies out there, emerging markets and we look at their rate of inflation, that does not compare to what we're seeing here.
So as we head into year end as well as 2027, we talked about institutional adoption as well as tokenization. What do you think will be at the forefront?
Look, I think I mentioned it before, a percentage allocation, a balanced exposure to a developing technology and network, and people will gain more and more acceptance of the fact that, look, we've talked, we can talk about technologies to the cows come home. But, you know, we have the Skype initiative and the VoIP based system.
Lots of people were very, we had Uber as a concept and what it was built to do. Lots and lots of opposition. We had the Pirate Bays and the Latin and the Napster. There's about five showing now. We're all on Spotify and Tile using the same infrastructure and technology. So there's always that initial sort of pushback on new technologies.
But there's more and more of an acceptance now. And I think that's developing and I think it's accelerating. And I think that will continue to happen. And as you say, when people are concerned about the inflation rates in the US, it's minuscule. Yeah. You know, speak to your friends in Zimbabwe or speak to your friends in Argentina.
Look at currency, look at inflation. Look at government or internal risks. They can't even gain exposure to USD through their banking infrastructure. So, you know, it's an incredibly attractive value proposition to them. So I think, you know, that's happened a lot and it'll continue to happen.
If anything, I think accelerate. Yeah.
Well, Joe, we will have to leave it there for today. But thank you so much for joining us. And thank you so much for all of your insights and your perspective. Thank you.
