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And now we are joined by Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Mike Novogratz, and let's just start with the simple things. Let's start with bitcoin in the crypto world, because we're flirting with that seventy thousand dollars level and you sit here, we have been around this space for a while. Now, is there more upside risk or downside risk as you see it now in the crypto world?
Listen, I think we're getting skewed to the upside. I mean just the fact that we're here at a crypto show and Bloomberg shows how long we've come since twenty fifteen, sixteen seventeen.
But we kind of got to the finish line.
And when I say that DC has finally agreed in principle that crypto legislation has to happen, that it should be bipartisan, we still have a couple holdouts, but it's the last few weeks have been unbelievably positive in pushing the Democrats forward. Seeing this, they don't want it to be a political issue, and so that which was a
headwind is becoming a tailwind. It's not a full tail win yet, we have governments that can't stop spending money, and so that just is so powerful for the bitcoin narrative. And then all of a sudden, you hear, wait a minute, the state of was constant's pension.
Fun about one hundred and forty million dollars a bitcoin.
And so as we get more pension funds in more institutions, and you know, there's not a lot of sellers.
So the question we know you hate, then where do we end the year.
Listen, if we take out the seventy three thousand in the next week or so, we're going to end the year on one hundred thousand somewhere around there.
We're even hire.
Markets work, they create ranges, and when the ranges, the top of the range breaks, you know you have a nice extension. And so you know at the bottom of that range was started around forty, so forty to seventy. This seventy goes to one hundred, and so that's a good enough target.
Okay, we saw a spot bitcoin etf sorry to get approved this year, and we've seen a lot.
Of inflows there.
So it makes me wonder what the next catalyst is for bitcoin to actually break seventy three and get to hear your in target of one hundred thousand.
Yeah.
So I had had the same question, asked me, I don't know five weeks ago, and I said, I don't think it will unless we get one of two things happen. More regulatory clarity, which I thought was a low probability at that point, and or the FED starting to move. We're getting the regulatory clarity, and even though it's not perfect, we got enough.
That people now realize this is coming. And why is that important? What does it mean?
So if SABE one, this arcade accounting bill and in time gets overturned, it allows Bank of New York and State Street and.
Others to get into custody.
If the infrastructure build, If the FIT twenty one bill gets approved, it allows Goldman Sachs and City Bank and all these other people to start doing sales and trading. And so as you bring those institutions in, huge money follows.
The Biden White House said it would veto that overturning.
The Biden White House vetoed the ZAB twenty one, and then they said they they wouldn't veto, and so they were talking. This is really sad what happened. Because Donald Trump stole the show. He basically came out and said, I'm your crypto president. The same day Biden had said he was going to veto this thing. Why would a president sitting president talk about vetoing a arcane accounting rule? And so that turned the whole crypto community into Trump's
corner and almost was like a purity test. People said, if you don't vote for Trump, you're not a crypto person. And finally the Democrats heard and so real quickly, nine Democratic senators voted not to support that accounting rule, against Elizabeth Warren's wishes, against the SEC's.
I'm going to steal Tim's question here, he asked all our guests, is I'm going to ask you at the end of the day, who would be better for bitcoin? Who would be better for crypto? Trump or Biden.
What is so clear to me is it's the wrong question. What is good for our industry is a bipartisan support of bills. Otherwise you're going to be student Buney left, student Boddy right. Listen, these elections are going to swing back and forth for a while, and so crypto shouldn't be partisan.
The short answer is, right now, Trump.
Would because he says I'm crypto president, I'm going to do all this stuff. But really that's a short it's a short term way of looking at things. What we've done a really great job of and shout out to Brian Armstrong and lots of people in.
The industry of our own time. You know, we've got our own.
Lobbyist in DC is educating people on both sides. And there are tons of Democrats that are for good crypto legislation.
Now, so many people who are pouring money into elections right now and into lobbying from the crypto community.
What's this scale? How much influence do they really have?
As someone frankly Mike was a traditional way donor as well as a crypto donor, the.
Scale has gotten big. That's why the Democrats woke up. There's been about one hundred and fifty million on it's way to two hundred and fifty million dollars in these crypto superpacks.
That's not all crypto money.
What happened was when the Democrats kept saying we don't like crypto, and again it was a very small group. It was Elizabeth Ward who said, I want to have an anti crypto army. The way politics work in DC is every Senator doesn't know every issue, they look to the leader of that committee. So Elizabeth really was running
crypto for the Democrats, and she hates crypto. So all that money started to look like Republican money, even though it was supposed to be bipartisan and focused on really key races.
Shared Brown's race, John Tester's race.
What would you say to someone watching right now who might say, you know what, the SEC and lawmakers it's their job to protect people from getting involved in things that could hurt them. And there are some people out there who say, well, there are a lot of people out there who say, I don't want touch crypto because I've seen how of all little it can be, and I don't think it's something that, you know, mom and pop folks should have in their portfolios.
I see you laughing, Mike.
Well, because Kai, frankly, anyone who bought big with the exception of one or two people that bought it over seventy thousand has made money. You know, Like, if you bought that codin held it like most bigcoiners do, you're in the money. So they're protecting them against making money. That makes no sense. Listen, there have been frauds. There have been lots of you know, shenanigans in this crypto space, and those need to be prosecuted.
And they were.
They were prosecuted, they were pushed out of the system. Sam Bankman's freeze in jail. Other people will go to jail. And so I'm not saying this was a lilly white industry any in any space, but this idea that we've got to protect somebody from this new technology that cuts out the middleman, that allows people to transact directly instead of paying a fee, is just wrong thought of Okay, we.
Don't have a ton of time, but I do want to get to one question on ethereum before we take a little break. If we do see ETF for theoreum approved in the coming months, which many people think we will see, what will what are your thoughts on sort of excitement and terms of inflows given that you can already get exposure to crypto through ETFs and spot bitcoin ETFs, Well we see the same type of enthusiasm.
Well, listen, we're going to see enthusiasm. What was so unique about the Bitcoin ETF. It was the first time, in lots of ways that the US federal government said crypto's okay, you're okay to do crypto. Even though Gary Gamzer didn't want to say it, he said it, and the government said it.
Larry Fink said it.
Larry Think is the largest asset manager and the runs the largest ass management company in the world. And so the credentialization of bitcoining crypto that was kind of limit up. This is a second step towards that. So it's great for the ethereum community. It won't have the exact same impact, but it'll have a big impact.
Right.
All of these ecosystems are about bringing new people into the ecosystem, into the circus tent, right, and so this is a new and easier way for lots of people to participate in the ethereum community.
And so it's nothing but a that positive