Surveillance Special: The Bitcoin Debate

August position chief economist and all that? If you have a trading experience to die for? And this was of course the Chase men. This is folks, when it was Chase Manhattan, Proprietary Trading Group, Swiss Bank or Swiss Bank Corps. These are names from the past, Steen, But you have been on a desk. How does a trading experience, grizzled guy like you look at bitcoin? Do you trust the bid and trust the ask? Given the years and years you've had of enjoying losing money? Absolutely not. I must say.

I'm just back from pretty much a world tour and as sooner my presentation over the first question is about cryptocurrency. The second, the third, the fourth, and the the fifth is also about cryptocurrency. So you know, you made me sound very old, which of course I had, but now I'm actually uh my most recent highs of twenty two year old crypti analysts. So it's very much become part of

my my every day. And I have to say the crypto analyst the high it which twenty two and me we sit and exactly obviously the ends of the spectrum in terms of how exciting old this is for me.

This is a very sophisticated computer game that is running out of steam at as soon as we see as we saw today the confirmation of c M E, c B O E and other exchanges going to make it live because we know in history, when we actually have a proper and that is the essence of your question, when we have a proper bit and a proper offer, when we have the ability to trade both side off the trade, then the market becomes a totally different animal.

In other words, I think the US to salization of the c M E, c B OH we actually become a transparent market, will make this market grow, whether they've been continues to go either to twenty five thousand or five thousand or one thousand. Of course we will be depending on how good they are becoming a real currency with the heritage of the Baltic Sea and the mathematics of Louvin. And I don't know where the first trade was made in Copenhagen. Maybe it was out in the

harbor with a mermaid. And there's the buttonwood tree and the rest of it. Where do the markets meet on bitcoin? Do you have any belief in the bid ask process of bitcoin being a market transparent process? Not at all. And we see dating stories that that circulated, certainly on Twitter and other social media platfhones that are people have been trying to hit the bid then they've gone from

being up hundred stuves to being down miners thirty. Because as sex as you say, what we what we're dealing with mathematically, which Switchpane O'Connor told me a long time ago is the fat tail and in the fat tel. The central problem is that we have what we call this continuity discontinuity, and this continus you means basically you cannot expect the price we want you once to free fall free fall. What you have is you have to price this hundred is hundred, and then it's fifty, and

then it's sixty, and then it's hundred and twenty. So you have a pricing model that looks very very different. It doesn't mean the market doesn't have liquidity, but it only has pockets of liquidity. So you absolutely writing saying that. I will say for the business we do mainly in exchange traded products on this uh, this is exchange traded notes, which we facilitate a lot of people are treading it, but it's really with the one person of the capital trying it out. How do we do this? How does

it work? So far? And all the last couple of days, a few people got burned, but overall, of course, as long as we have this trajectory higher today ten thousand, four and fifty five, as we talked, of course people think this is a money machine. But I have noticed my email box is starting to fill up with people

saying I can make in a week the stein. You know, I want to just follow up on this idea of what's real and what's not because Tesla comes to mind when I think of a company that's not making any money but has evaluation that's greater than many of its peers like Ford for example, and one if you could just dive a little bit deeper into this whole world of electric vehicles and what it takes to power them

and an investment opportunity. This is all about lithium batteries, at least at the moment, as certainly, if not list

in the future, then certainly batteries. What I've been arguing and saying is that when you have one single political power like China wanting to deal with this number one social easy pollution through electrification of costs and in the process saying by twenty thirty all costs has to be electrified, do you have a magnitude of new release k bix and and and research and development We've never seen false

Wargen of Germany has committed over twenty billion. That took committed twenty five billions to drive all this carts in the space of last six months. We see across the board the money has been front at it at a rate we have not seen. I mean, if there's one thing lagging from this beautiful stock market we've seen over the last ten years, it is exactly that the companies to some extent has stopped doing K bix and taking the kpick expendure down to the bottom life improving margins.

What we see now, in my opinion, and the next ten years, and even most dominantly in US next two years, is that everybody's going to move to electric cars. Seeing this has been brilliant. We've got to get you on again soon, particularly in our London offices. Mr Jacobson, this was Sexo Bank, this is Bloomberg. We're back with Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University in January. Professor Stiglitz said this,

so let's bring in that quote board. I believe very strongly that countries like the United States could and should move to a digital currency. Professor, were you talking about bitcoin then, No, I was not. I was talking to about actually extending the systems that we already have, like uh, master card, visa. Let's make the whole system, uh into to one in which we we use digital currency. Uh. It's not bitcoin, it's a basically US dollar based uh

in the United States and Europe, uh, euro and the pound. Uh. But it's using electronics rather than paper. You know, paper is so uh first century? Why are we using paper? That was the question that was professor. If bitcoin were to be regulated, could it be viable? I look look at uh one of the main functions of government is to create currency. Uh. And bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, uh, lack of oversight. So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed. It

doesn't serve any socially useful function. Uh. It's uh. We ought to just go back to what we always have had. And and this is just a bubbles. Several of your commentators have already pointed out it's a bubble. That's uh. Uh. I'm going to give a lot of people a lot of exciting times as it rigs up and then goes down. But what I was talking about is the medium of exchange that we use for transaction. Uh. And what I was trying to say is, let's move away from paper

into the century of a digital economy. This is a way from your Nobel prize, and it's away from your acclaim and economics, but I'm gonna go there anyways. Charles mcka eighteen forty one talks about our peculiar follies in the behavioral component that makes for these bubbles. Whether it's sixteen thirty seven and Tulip Bubs eighteen forty rows. Bring up the chart here, here's the bubble into making. This is log bitcoin. I can't stand the arithmetic charts and

this is all you need to know. This is massive convexity. I haven't seen that charts since the Tulip bulbs. When we're doing surveillance by Semaphore Professor Stiglets, they're relying on a Marxist theory of value. They're going back to middle marks and looking at the value of exchange. It's smoking mirrors, isn't it. Uh precisely, thank you? Why well, the value of a bitcoin today is expectations of what the bitcoin

is going to be tomorrow. Uh. If the government says, look at the reason bitcoin is being used as the circumvention, they could compt down in any moment and then uh it collapses. We got to get you back here. I would love to have you join our London set with Francine to talk about Brexit, some of that politics, and also talk to you about the underlying value of exchange

of bitcoin. He is a lord from Colombia. Two books, two books and one there they are the classic globalization is discontent and the Euro as well from Joe Stiglets as well. You're gonna get to another important conversation ripping up the script on this truly historic announcement on bitcoin where CME and cbo E have chosen to set up markets on a bitcoin that is a big bitcoin higher. We'll get to that quote in a moment. First, our economic indicators and they are always always brought you by

Commonwealth Financial Network to broker dealer. Are I a that's been putting relationships first since found out why the industry is most satisfied advisors. They are head over heels about Commonwealth Financial Network. Visit Commonwealth dot com. So we've had a Jimmer con Cambridge Mathematics principal group. He was brilliant on the gyrations, if you will, as the news broke. And then we got lucky with Steen Jacobson Uh exceptionally experienced trader UH and now chief economist with Saxo Bank

so much. And now we go to the gentleman who fractured mathematics like I did when he was at California Santa Barbara. Chris Alman joins us UH right now with the California State Teachers Retirement System you're on a whole another spectrum from some of our other Matthew guests is bitcoin, I'm sure is tangential for you. But nevertheless, you gotta think about it. How does how many assets do you have? Are you wonder like seventeen trillion? Uh? Okay, that's a

little smaller than trillion. But you're you're running this aircraft carrier through the water. Do you care about the little pt boat? We do well a bitcoin because it is a market, it's interesting. I actually don't believe it's institutional yet. The news today is another step along that way. But I've said, uh, Tom, you know there's tangible and intangible investments, and bitcoin is the ultimate intangible investment. It represents nothing

other than what somebody else will pay for it. It's air, it's invisible. Um. The fact that it has a market that's good. If anything in our world, Um, it's gonna probably represent an alternative currency. It's not a yen, it's not a pound, it's not a dollar. I'm going to get upset here. I did this with mail Pass yesterday at the Counts on Foreign Relations. David wants dependable currencies. It's not a come on Chris with that vall up or down. It's not a currency. It what I said

was an alternative. In other words, if you're managing your currency portfolio and hedging it and you don't like pounds or dollars or yen or euros, it then becomes another alternative of almost being out. It's the cash equivalent maybe of of the asset allocation. We're not going to be using it. I'm gonna be studying it, but I bet it's going to be five to ten years before it becomes institutional. Do you ever feel that the it's a

generational experiment that people under the age at thirty. I mean, we were just hearing from Steen Jacobson saying that he's got a twenty two year old analyst who's following bitcoin form and that they are at opposite ends when they look at the efficacy and the legitimacy of bitcoin. Oh, absolutely, you can cut it. Basically, I'll divide our audience five and before don't really get bitcoin. Very few of them trade it. After that, gen x a little bit, and

the millennials absolutely just think it's the coolest thing. But they also put their entire lives out on the web and trust trust things implicitly. Uh. And again, this is a digital entity that has no underlying value underneath it. It is an invisible product. Um. And I think there's a generational divide people who want things that have underlying Even a stock which is digital, has an underlying ownership

slice of a of a company. Right. But I'm glad you mentioned stocks because this also makes me think of Amazon, right, and I think of the Amazon Alexa echos that are appearing in people's homes. And how if I had described to you five ten years ago that this would be the way that you would interact with your uh, your retailer. I don't think many people would say, oh yeah, I'll just say what I want and it will just magically appear at my door. There's gonna be disruption, um. There's

no regulations on bitcoins. So just like with Amazon, UM and Echo and all the different products, you're gonna see proliferations, You're gonna see growth, um. But I think you're also going to have some ups and downs of disruptions. As Tom said, volatility is going to be the code word because there's no rules and regulations to follow these things.

But don't people counter that would saying that g You know, I lived through the two thousand eight two thousand seven to house and eight decline in stock prices and I'm still recovering from that. So I don't have a lot of faith in the stock market. Uh, what's the difference between that and bitcoin? It's just about what someone else is willing to pay me. Well, I'd argue that if you invested in no way, if you stayed invested like we have, you've already recovered and you own something that

actually has some underlying asset value. There's a book value to those equities that you hold. There's no book value underlying of of a bitcoin. Doesn't mean it needs to go away, but you know who wants to trade a product that is primarily used by North Korea and unknown people. It's underlying value is it's the only value it has that it's anonymous, and obviously that's being proven to be wrong. When you were at Santa Barbara, did you get to

see dish wall before they became famous? I did not, Tom, But you're right there. A lot of good things have come out of Santa Barbara and continue to to this day. This is the popular place. Counting blue cars came out of nowhere, and everyone's like, who are these people? I mean, it was magical bitcoin has come out of nowhere. I haven't had a constructive interview this week, pim with somebody

under over. Is there anybody you know of our vintage that knows who dishwallet is that actually thinks bitcoins for real? That hurts at hurts And no, no constructive interviews? Uh? Sis, I know, seriously, I'm not sure that that there are. I think you've heard from very knowledgeable people, Jamie Diamond, quite a few others that have spoken out very strongly about bitcoin. Um, it could be it will be around for a long time. A number of the cryptocurrencies. Well,

I'm gonna well, let me do this. Christie Allman. Uh, Christie Alman with Kelster California, say, teachers retirement system and the headline there's this, This is like in a million I've been here for like a hundred and twelve years, Michael, right, this headline. US regulators to allow bitcoin futures at c in the CBO, get hold out my wallet. Well to get back to and Richard's CEO of MMG Investments who manages over two eight billion pounds and assets, and Robert Niblett.

He's director of Chatham House. So and first of all, what is bitcoin? I mean, can you afford to to sit it out or you need to be in but stay skeptical. Look, there are people that use bitcoin for all sorts of different reasons. Um. I mean I tend to agree, as you've just seen from the price moves that you can't say this is a store of value when the volume moves around as much as it does. It's clear that there are reasons why some people may choose to use appeer to peer currency or exchange, which

is effectively what you're talking about in bitcoin. There might be legitimate reasons for that because you want to transactions away from prying government eyes. There might be illegitimate reasons why you might want to do that to keep transactions away from prying tax authorities. Um. But what it is not is something that you can use in replace of a dollar or sterling or euro. Because it is it does not have the underpinning and the backing of government

oversighter issuance. And I think some of that, certainly on the oversight will come because it has to come, But that shouldn't take away from the fact that the underlying technology. The distributed ledger technology is a blot chain that sits underneath. It is a really powerful technology, and people have in the last two or three years have been starting to develop that distributed ledger technology for other purposes and other applications,

and that is immensely powerful. But what's going on in the pricing of bitcoin is definitely mainlya in my mind right now, do you think it'll be regulated? And if it does get regulated, can then actually come back as an asset that you would look at? Well, I think it's possible that if you go way down the line that it's possible that might be some thing that you trade, But it's not a it's an instrument. It's not an asset.

I think that's the way to look at it. So it's an instrument in the way that we've we've now trade in other non underpinned assets and sorts of derivatives that you have, but volatility would be one example. You can trade volatility. There's not an underlying asset to volatility itself. So I think yes, as a traded instrument, it is possible it will mature enough to be something that we can use, but we're away away from that We're years

away from that. What is clear though, is that regulation I think at some stage must come to this market because people need to be protected. It's lots of people playing in this space who don't know what they're doing. Let's zoom in on the chart here. If we have bitcoin, we showed it yesterday. This is the interday chart. It's really you know, there's like eight ways to look at this chart on a log basis. Up we go with

the surgery. You really don't get the moonshad feel a bitcoin, but you do get is this huge volatility yesterday and then the churn and this recent little move here. What I would suggest is you got a vector like this and we'll really have to see if bitcoin can find a bidder. I love what Dennis gar And said, taking

a direct shot at Bloomberg surveillance, Bitcoin this and Bitcoin that. Dennis, if you're watching, yes, we're doing more bitcoin this in Bitcoin that, and Richards if bitcoin's out there, and Robin Nibblet, let me go to you on this. The focus seems to be on the excesses of bitcoin in China. Can that be a set of financial instability for the Chinese leadership? Um, well,

you're getting a little bit beyond my Ken here. I mean, my instinct would be to say that part of this rise of bitcoin is to do with the fact that we have some large anti corruption drives in place in key markets across the world. China has been going on for a while, but you've got Saudi Arabia as well. Now who knows what might come in some of these other as we discussed earlier, kind of very tightly controlled governments.

So people are looking, as Anne was saying, for a place to hide money, to be frank more than anything else. So I'm just wondering how much of this in my world, how much of my world is spilling over into the bitcoin space. If it is from a Chinese government standpoint, having pretty much impost some control on the the shadow banking side that had really got a little bit out of control, it'll worry them that a new risk has come along that they're now also going to have to tame.

This goes to my book of the Year last year, Kenneragos the cursor cash Robin and the idea of of Sweden leading the way and maybe India or their courage dealing with it as well. Is there going to be a cursive bitcoin. Do you just assume that if it's the new cash alternative, at some point bitcoin collapses? Is it almost barter medium? For my taste, it feels more

like Barto medium. I'm still a big believer, however, weak governments are around the world that the best thing you've got in terms of preserving order, and whether that order is applied to international alliances or to markets or the money. People are still looking for some ultimate authority and the only one that's just right now national governments very good. Well, the cursive bitcoin, maybe that's what we'll call it. Robbin

Nibblet where a sitting in Richards him. I want to get to this because there's so much to talk about with Jim McCahon this morning, Jim, John cry and Deutsche Bank, James Gorman, Morgan Stanley and Richards we spoke to earlier this morning at MG. You you're all mathematically based. Do you have a confidence that are fixed income markets can unwind in the cute with mathematical stability over the next two to five years, Tom, I have confidence, but not certainty.

So far, the Fed has judged it very well. They went through a lengthy period of not replacing of placing the bones now they're not replacing them. The running down the balance sheet, I think that's eminently possible within the market structure, within the flow of funds. Essentially, what the Fed has done is moved from a very accommodative monetary policy with que through a neutral one to now a slight tightening by reducing the balance sheet. And I think

that goes with a modest interest rate increase. Now they've got to keep it stable. But then Mr Powell as chair is a continuity candidate, so I'm fairly confident they'll keep it stable. Without certainty they will sounded like the gentleman from Cambridge using their the calculus of through the calculus of the words slight. These are all gentle gradual, vector driven ideas. You and I know there can be

exoggerous shocks. What's the exaggerous shock that could upset the apple cart for Governor Carney, Chairman Powell and all those remaining including Mr drag Well, for for for Governor Karney and for Mr drag you, it would be the impact of a hard Brexit. And I think the news on Bloomberg today about banks having to repay per contracts is a very good example of the sort of disruption that

could inhibit credit creation in Europe. That would be a nasty shock coming from within the monetary system, and one that hasn't been focused on yet. There are lots of these events that could with a fairly low probability of a serious adverse effect. So far we're managing to shimmy around them and not to have any of them really hit the economy. But that's what I'm concerned about. I think it's basically a good environment, but I am more

worried about negative tail risk than usual. Jim, maybe you could just focus a little bit on small and mid cap stocks because they have lagged the overall market, whether you're talking about the S and P five and I'd like to get your thoughts on whether you think that that is an opportunity for investors. Yeah. I think that the US private sector has prospered and will continue to pross Spur and Spider Washington. I think there's a lot

of innovation. I think there's some derregulation. If tax changes go through, it will be good for the US private sector. So I would be a supporter of buying small and MidCap stocks in the US. Not so much because they're small, but because they're largely domestic, and I think that is a good place to be relative to other markets. Well, that also indicated your view on the US dollar. I mean, if they're domestically oriented, that means they're insulated from many

swings and currency. Yeah. I think that's right. The dollar, I suspect is going a little bit stronger over the next year or two. If one of these negative tail risks happened, the dollar would go a lot stronger. But I think most likely the dollar will have a fairly firm undertone. That's not necessarily great for global companies. It's probably better for the domestics. Well, let me just ask you a little bit more about this call the dollar

getting stronger. You really believe it. For example, I would imagin and President Donald Trump, real estate expert as he is, would be in favor of either stable or lower interest rates. A my missing something. Yeah he is. But you know, you're at a point where FED policy points to higher short term rates and that will affect the dollar. I think it mean, it's the nearest thing to a certainty on the markets that they're going to do a basis

point increase at their December meeting. I think the consensus is sort of ninety plus percent that they'll do that. Well, I just cause, what what's your thought then on if you what's the percentage of sort of your analysis of an inverted yield curve? Do you think? Yeah, I think an inverted yield curve could eventually happen. But I think what's going to happen in the next twelve months is that the short rates will go up, but not as much as the Fed's dot plot, and that you'll see

some yield curve of flattening. I think that's where it goes over the next year or two. Him all Jim mccoon's hand with his Jim mccon mathematician, chief executive, all a certain force of principal group. Here's the headline. It's seven am. Would you hold his hand please, He's gonna need to be medicated him. US regulators to allow bitcoin futures to trade on CME and cbo E. We now rip up the show here to talk to Jim about auction theory. Okay, it's it's a bloody class your junior

year on auction theory. You've got a bid in an ask, You've got no depth in the market. You've got a mystery to who's who, You've got massive ill liquidity, you've got no data stability tick to tick, and these guys are going to do futures on that auction process. Can you tell us? Can you tell what Tom's view on this? I think I've got a good guess. How can we set up a regulatory structure around a mystery of bidass process.

We're not doing futures. I'm proctoring gamble and this is a derivative, which means that the regulatory structure isn't reaching into the cash market, which is probably just as well because they couldn't get into transparency into the cash market. I think the problem with bitcoin is, you know, even even precious metals have a have some sort of intrinsic value because they look good. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, which means it could go down a p it could

go up very easily. You and I know. Then let's take the gloom case. If something goes down, everybody looks at all my word, they're selling it, and you and I know the type two construct is not the ask when it goes down, if there's no one there in the bid and then these derivative regulatory bodies cm E, c B o E, they have to deal with that

the vacuum. Yeah, so what the regulators need to do with any players that are actually trading this future is make sure they're not exposed either way on it because the volatility will remain very high. From a regulatory point of view, I think that's about all you can do, because this is I mean, this is no better than betting on the horses. It's a pure with that accent saying betting on the horses works great. But Jim mccoin, what is absolutely critical here is you and I know

this can be a correct, responsible hedge vehicle. I get that by definition you need to have speculation. On the other side, you do what do you predictive speculation and that emotion of leverage as you're successful for a set number of units. I think the problem with this market will be that events will drive it. And remember it's not many years ago Mounts the exchange went under, bitcoins disappeared,

investor value was was obliterated. That could happen again. You know, there are unregulated exchanges and all kinds of jurisdictions that are trading these bitcoins. There's all kinds of trading going on which is confidential and totally untransparent. That's what you're betting on. So I I think anyone who gets involved in this has to be prepared to lose all their money.

But the the term, and this is a quote, the term, the term that it's being used to describe the process by which this is coming to market is called self certification. Have you ever heard of self certification? Not exactly No, I think I know what it sounds like. It sounds like canfattempt or doesn't it? Is this though? The kind of event, for example, if you go to coin based, you go to some of these sites and they lock

up for whatever reason. Is that the kind of event that then gets everybody you know, saying, let's just get out, I want to go to cash. That could happen. That could happen, But I think I think it's likely to be something worse than a temporary lock up in a trading site. You know, we're doing Bloomberg Radio twenty five year anniversary. To me, Pim, this is a really important point. You and I remember when cbo E was who are

those guys options? Really? I mean, if we're developing a new would you within derivative math very quickly, or Jim Macon, would you call this a synthetic instrument. There's no tangible. It's the tangible. It's a derivative ones synthetic instruments, it's there is nothing tangible. Here's I think the way that bitcoin could obtain an economic value if it was used as a medium of exchange. But it's not happening. It's

actually going into reverse. Many of the bitcoins and circulation are actually going into fronts, so they're not being they're being used less. We are so fortunate you're with us today on this announcement, Jim mccoon with us from Principal Group and CME and cbo E looking at bitcoin. We are honored always at Bloomberg surveillance over the acuity and the distinctions and the differences of our guests. Today has

been no difference. And now for another twisted look. She holds an electrical engineering degree from kel Tech and showed out a shingo at Harvard University in Stanford for a bit. Elaine Oh joins us. She writes for Bloomberg View, Elaine, what was it like the day you got your acceptance letter from kel Tech. Oh, that was a really long time ago, But I mean I always knew I wanted to go there because I I've been interested in tech

and computers since that was the kid. You come from the tech side of this arch debate on bitcoin, as as someone of prodigious academics in engineering and operations systems, how do you respond to economists, for example, Joseph Stiglets Laureate saying bitcoin should be outlawed. Well, I mean it's a really silly thing to say that the coins should be outlawed because it can't be outlawed. It's it's not

controlled by anyone. There's no command center. I mean, this is this is something that's being run in the countries all around the world on like tens of thousands of machines. So I mean he can say that, but it's just silly. Well, Elaine, if it's silly, I mean, I'm wondering, for example, can

you log on to Facebook in China? Uh? You Well, you'd have to go through a vp N. I mean, there are ways to log onto Facebook in China, but it's not accessible to But but I raised that that specific example just because you say that it can't be outlawed. What if, let's say the Chinese government were to see bitcoin as a threat to the stability of the financial system and they outlawed people's ability to invest in it.

Um I think, I mean, that's actually a very real threat right now China has I guess the central banks or people think has um made insinuations that they plan to do some sort of deep packing inspection to filter out bitcoin related traffic. But I think that users will find a way around that if they truly want to use bitcoin. You are a blockchain engineer, do you care about the price of bitcoin? Um? Only in as far as uh, A lot of my clients pay me in bitcoin,

But for the most part, I mean not really. But but I mean the technology is sound and it will continue to be for many years. Can we then partition all the price blah blah blah from your engineering work or on a ven diagram? Are they overlamping not? The price doesn't have a lot to do with the underlying technology, um, I mean right now, bitcoin's number one use case is speculation, which is not really what it was intended for you, But that's just a side effect. Is this number two

use corruption? In black market crime. I wouldn't say that, uh. Um from my experience, the number two US is just to make UM international payments because it's not always easy to or the cost effective to go through UM a bank that needs to then go through a corresponding bank to making international transfer. Elaine, you wrote back in June and a really great piece for a Bloomberg And it

has to do with the blockchain bubble. You said that it might be a desirable thing having to do with the sale of digital tokens, and what if you could explain that Yeah, uh, well, so this is sort of separate from bitcoin, but people have been trying for I guess a lot of startups and entrepreneurs are raising money by selling digital tokens, and most of the people who are buying these tokens will see their investment s paper rise.

But at the same time, UM, it's always been really hard for people who are developing open source software to find sources of funding, and the bubble, I mean might not result in returns for the investors, but I think this is finally a good way for UM software developers to write independent sources of funding. What is your best outcome? I mean, you know, almost within an engineering standpoint, what is your best outcome for all the froth and uproar

over the price ascent of bitcoin? What what? What would you like to have happen? If we see it in an arithmetic space, it's a hyperbola, it's not there yet in a log y axis where it's simply convex. Do you want it to go higher? Do you want stability? Or do you want it to retreat to some level that's optimal for you. I'd actually prefer to see the

price go lower right now. Bitcoin transactions are every bitcoin transaction costs a certain amount of money that denominate in bitcoin, and the higher the price of bitcoin, the more expensive it is to make a payment using bitcoin. So I would prefer to see the price quite a bit lower just to make it so payments aren't as expensive as

a team Eleno, thank you so much. She writes for Bloomberg View, and of course with her work within blockchain UH and with a more technological end of of bitcoin, she's with global financial access as well, but writing for Bloombergview. Thrilled to have a len On with us today. H thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast subscribe and listen to interviews on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whichever podcast platform you prefer. I'm on Twitter at Tom Keene before

the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio