Host: Bitcoin is taking a breather after a summer surge from its July lows, rising bond yields as well as elevated oil prices are weighing on risk assets and sentiment worldwide. Now underneath this recent volatility, Wall Street is accelerating its push into digital assets, and that means driving mainstream adoption through 24/7 stablecoin payments as well as the tokenization of traditional stocks, bonds, well, as commodities. Well, joining us live here at the New York Stock Exchange is Alex Bloom, CEO of Two Prime, who will be hosting the Signal Digital Assets Symposium here in New York City. Well, Alex, good morning. Thank you so much for joining us.
Alex Bloom: Thanks for having me again.
Host: Well, here we are in the beginning of the final quarter of 2026, and we're looking at Bitcoin holding on to that 82,000 handle. But what are the risks as we head into year end?
Alex Bloom: I see most of the risks are macro risks. Like everybody, I think, is unsure how all this AI stuff is going to play out, and there's so much debt and so much equity tied to the success of AI. You know, there's been shaky news around OpenAI's actual financials recently that might disrupt a lot of faith in how sustainable all this stuff really is, and there's so many layers to the data centers, to the financiers, to the applications, that if that falls, I think a lot of risk assets can go with it. And then obviously just inflation and bond yields continue to run out of control. And so if we can't get inflation or the 10- or 30-year to temper down, I think it's bad news for almost all risk assets.
Host: Yes, and as you mentioned, we have a lot coming down the pike when it comes to catalysts for the broader markets, and indeed we're paying attention to what's happening in geopolitics. And it is also midterm election season, so we're counting down to that November date. But as you mentioned, as we contend with all these risks, we're also looking at what's coming out from the nation's capital. And despite the fact that the Senate cloture vote for CLARITY failed, we've been hearing a lot from the CFTC as well as SEC. So tell us your perspective when it comes to the role of some of these announcements.
Alex Bloom: So yeah, I would say despite some shaky news, the CLARITY bill not passing, financial headwinds with rates and yields and inflation being high, crypto digital assets continue to actually perform pretty strongly. And so to me this is often a sign of the beginning of a bull market, where things go well despite the news. Often if you have a crash during good news, it means the opposite sometimes. And so to me you're getting regulatory guidance from the SEC and CFTC, and then you have just such a convergence of real traditional financial players joining this market. I remember, like, in 2017 there would be some news like, you know, some associate of Goldman Sachs considering buying Bitcoin for his personal account, and like everything would go up, like it was huge news. And now you hear Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, these groups have entire divisions. They're hiring on-chain tokenization specialists, and it's just a robust thing that I don't think is ever going to be reversed. And to plug my own thing, we're bringing a lot of those leaders together at our event, the Signal, this Wednesday here in New York City, and we have speakers from ICE and all over the world joining us, and so I'm excited about that.
Host: Yes, and you mentioned the Signal gathering that you're hosting here in New York City. So give us a sense of what you're going to be focusing on, because here on Wall Street we have been paying attention to what's happening in terms of tokenization as well as stablecoins and what's happening on the infrastructure side. But what is the focus going to be at the Signal?
Alex Bloom: I think that the main idea of it is just convergence between TradFi and digital assets. You know, there's this era I call the crypto era, and I think we've left that and we've entered something called the on-chain finance era, which is using this technology that digital assets and blockchain enables and making it comport with traditional infrastructure and, most importantly, for better or worse, regulatory rules that I think are the biggest constricting factor to what this new technology will actually allow us to do. And so for us I want to bring together leaders from places like ICE, public companies, as well as some of the leaders in digital assets, both on-chain and more traditional firms, and have them speak about what's actually being built now and what are the main opportunities and things in people's way. And there will be about 400 digital finance speakers from every financial firm you've ever heard of in attendance.
Host: Yes, and speaking of which, for viewers out there who are watching from the nation's airport gates or even in the business lounges or hotels, and they continue to hear about the tokenization of assets, what would you say are some of the hurdles or challenges, and what timeline do you expect for tokenization, not just here stateside but also around the globe?
Alex Bloom: Yes, so let's say first it's not the technology. We can tokenize every single thing in the world today. It's one, regulatory rules. So for example, if I tokenize equity in some private company, well, there's rules about transferring that, tracking who owns it over time, and things like Bitcoin, you don't have to track who owns it. It's anonymous. But when you start hitting securities laws, there needs to be transfer agents and people that track where this thing goes. However, if you're going to trade this on some of the permissionless AMM, like automated market makers, you can't track it and have all these transfer agents. So there's just a lack of ability to reconcile those things. The same, like, you know, there's a lot of firms tokenizing securities, including ICE and the New York Stock Exchange are working on stuff, and great, you can tokenize it and you can trade it 24/7, but if you can't use it as collateral on-chain or, again, if you can't transfer it permissionlessly, a lot of the value of the tokenization kind of goes away. Abroad there's a lot less rules around, for better or worse, securities treatment, and the rules make our capital markets very powerful and trustworthy, but it also means abroad they can do a lot of stuff that allows this technology to flourish in ways that just don't exist here.
Host: And finally, Alex, before I let you go, we are looking beyond 2026 to 2027. And many people might say if you're looking at the crypto market, the price of Bitcoin has come well off of highs we saw at the end of last year. But as you look ahead, obviously we're going to be paying attention to the institutional adoption as well as what's happening at the intersection of TradFi and DeFi. But what do you think is key to focus on as we head into the new year?
Alex Bloom: Our global governments have no option but to continue to print and inflate money, and especially with the growing debt crisis and bonds having problems, global instability, it all leads down one road, or as some people say, nothing stops this train. There's going to be more money printing and more debasement of the currency. Bitcoin is a hard asset that responds well to that over time and will likely grow just like many hard assets will, but it is maybe more sensitive than others and will grow as the currency continues to be debased. Hedge to global stupidity of our leaders.
Host: And finally, before I let you go, at the top of the show, you brought up artificial intelligence, and that is something we all continue to monitor, especially in terms of how it is being utilized in financial institutions. But when it comes to DeFi as well as crypto, what role do you think it will play?
Alex Bloom: One I've seen in my team and others I know, just the ability to iterate and build software. You know, my developers are 10x8 more effective with the same amount of resources, just being able to use AI in their workflows. So in the DeFi sense, I think you'll just see more products being created more quickly. And then, you know, I think you can use AI to trade on DeFi products a lot more easily than an AMLKYC or a regulated platform. And so it might be a venue of choice for more automated trading strategies. And yes, it's a lot easier to implement AI in those realms, I think.
Host: Well, a lot to keep our eyes on. So I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us here at the New York Stock Exchange this morning, Alex.
Alex Bloom: Thanks for having me. Thank you.
