Hey, folks, I've got Anthony Scaramucci, who is the founder and managing partner at Skybridge Capital. Anthony, great to be doing this in person with you.
It's great to be you. See. This is great. This backdrop here is fantastic. I love the logo, I love the the orange b. Yeah, you're up to your game. Man, You're up in your game in.
The podcast thanks to you and your constructive criticism many moons ago. So Anthony, Uh, I'm a big fan of yours. You've been in the investment space for a long time. What are your thoughts on how the environment has changed around crypto from the government.
Look, I try to call balls and strikes in my life. The Trump administration has transformed the game. I think the bad news for the United States unfortunately is were about half a decade behind, in some cases a full decade behind some of our global competitors. But the Trump administration has ended the war on crypto. They've advanced the ball on regulation, They've got crypto friendly people at the SEC,
the CFTC. I think the political wins have shifted. I think it's gonna be very hard for Democrats to be anti crypto, and I think it's turned out that there's no anti crypto vote. There's a crypto vote, but there's no anti crypto vote. So guys, let's get over it.
Let's help the United States maintain its financial services leadership, because I think that's very, very important for the United States one hundred and twenty five plus years of financial services leadership, and crypto has to be part of the future, and I applaud the Trump administration for seeing that and acting on it. I guess the next step though, is just to make sure that this is bipartisan.
Absolutely. I'm very happy President Trump is pro crypto. I'm not a fan of this meme coin. How do you feel about that?
All right, But that's what happens with Donald Trump.
I mean, you got to take the home and let me say, you gotta you know, you go to the Trump buffet at mar A Lago.
You can't walk away with pro crypto regulation.
You can't work away with a little bit of a tax cut, you know, and O, could I have a side order of banking deregulation? Trump says, no, no, no, you got to eat the whole goddamn thing. You gotta eat the meme coin. You gotta eat Canada being the fifty first state, you gotta eat the attack on Greenland.
Maybe we're gonna take over to Panama.
Let's let's drop a tariff bomb in every one of our allies, including our adversaries. So you are forced to eat the whole thing with the Trump buffet. And so I'm not in love with the meme coin. But that's part of Donald Trump.
That's who he is.
It is what it is. Now. Congress is working on legislation the Clarity Act, which is a market structure bill, and the Genius Act, which is a stable coin bill.
Don't you love the fact that they're called stable and genius?
Yes, yeah, I think that. Yeah some plot you know you love that. What are your thoughts on that? And do you anticipate those getting past this year?
I do.
I Actually, I'll be bold enough to say I think they get passed before the August recess. I think these guys are working hard on it. I think they've made some compromises and bridges, and I think it's gonna advance pretty quickly. Again, I don't think the Democrats want to be on the wrong side of this. And again, just think like a political leader for a second, you're going into twenty six, you.
May be up for reelection.
You're gonna have your opponent be pro crypto, you're gonna be anti crypto. First of all, you're gonna miss out on a lot of money, You're gonna miss out on a lot of votes, and you're gonna miss out on a lot of economic opportunity for your constituent. So that's
a negative trifecta. And I think these guys have decided that we're gonna move the game into a post partisan discussion, meaning we don't have a partisan discussion about trading stocks and bonds, but have a partisan discussion about trading oil or gold. And so let's not have one related to crypto.
That absolutely makes sense. And do you think you know, Anthony, you've been through the markets. We know a ball off top is coming sometime to say that could be a top signal a bitcoin one P fifty k legislation goes into place and things like that.
Yeah, I mean, listen, you know I I have experienced nine colossal epic bear markets in the business thirty seven years. It's it can be brutal in the bear markets. The big message for people is you've got to see things through. Obviously, probably one of the most painful periods of my career was after the FDx debacle, and in twenty twenty two.
We were really hurting.
We held our positions, stuck to our positions, and I will tell people on leverage is the right way to go in this market, because you know what the leverage is. Buff Buffett would tell you that the leverage is a spear coming out of the steering wheel of your sports car and you're driving at night on an icy mountain road when you need to hit the brake, that's when you don't want the leverage plunging into you.
And so stay on levered, stay focused on the long term.
And yes there's gonna be a blowoff top here somewhere. Yes, there'll be a huge correction. You know, Bitcoin can crash from three hundred and fifty thousand down to two fifty. I'll be a super happy camper. There'll be other people, Oh, it's over, it's over, you know, but just yeah, just relax, relax.
Well, you know, it's funny you mentioned leverage because Warren Buffett's partner in crime Rest in Peace, Charliemungers said, the way you can go broke women, leverage and booze. Right.
No, he left out drugs probably you know, Charlie was an old school guy. He left out the drugs, but the drugs can get you to Yeah.
So Anthony Circle went and did an IPO, And is this the IPO season for crypto?
Well, first off, fully disclosed, I was an investor pre IPO. I congratulate jere Me and his team. I think they've done a phenomenal job, and I do think you'll see more.
I think Kraken will likely go public.
This year, if not on then couple of months there was a neo bank not necessarily in the crypto space called Chime when public today, and so the IPO window has opened.
I think that's good news.
What I'm a little disappointed about, and this is because of regulation, we have less great.
Companies going into the hands of the public.
So it's hard for the public to get access to XAI, SpaceX. Lots of high profile privately traded or privately held companies that are not going public because of the onerous regulation. So I'm hoping for some delayering activity from the SEC that allows the public to get their cells on the hands. Well, some of these great companies remember when I was a kid.
In nineteen eighty six, Microsoft went public, and man, if you were smart enough to own Microsoft and write Apple Computer, you'll let the public have an opportunity to have jockeys like Brian Armstrong, Jeremy Alair, all stars CEOs like that have their money allocated towards So I hope there's more public offerings. I hope there's some less regulation associated with that.
So let's say the SEC updates the accreditation laws. But also could tokenization be something that companies can do ahead of an IPO if that makes sense?
Yeah, I mean listen, I think that's also coming.
You know, if you can get Larry Fink on your program, I'll channel my Larry finkishness if you will. That's happening the next three years. Imagine a situation, Tony, I've got my phone over there on my phone is my Starbucks stock. It's been tokenized. I walk into local Starbucks that are having a share of purchase and they'll give me a twenty percent discount on the drink that I'm about to buy from them if I move a sliver of my Starbucks stock over to the barista over the blockchain.
Okay, Why can't that happen. Why can't that Why couldn't that happen at a Walmart? Why couldn't that happened at Walt Disney. You know the point, the point I'm making is there's going to.
Be a lot more fungibility, a lot more liquidity on chain, and it's going to open up a whole range of potential positive commercial outcomes for people.
Now, this I think was just yesterday, Bank of America CEO confirmed there indeed working on a stable coin. They're also working on a joint stable coin with the rest of the banks. JP Morgan, what is your outlook on the the stablecoin market and the impact it may have on the US dollar?
Well, I think this is the I think this is the sweet spot.
People need to understand that we need to get this regulation passed and we need to have clarity on stable coins because look at somebody like Tether, uh not well known in the United States, but they not use the
United States because of the regulation. But Tether has more treasuries US treasuries on its balance sheet than Germany, the sovereign country of Germany, the sovereign country of Japan, and so what we know more stable coin ploof for if I'm saying that word properly leads to more dollar supremacy, because we're going to mark these stable coins in US dollar and that will strengthen the US dollars position around the world.
Is Skybridge looking at help doing something along those lines or helping another company do something like that.
Well, like I said, I'm an investor in Circle.
We have an ETF where we own a lot of coinbase in the ETF, so we're huge investors in coinbase, at least.
Through that pass through.
I own a lot of bitcoin on the firm's balance sheet. We own bitcoin in the firm's funds. We own Salona Avalanche, we own Poka Dot. I don't see us going into the stable coin space. We're just too small of a company. But I do see us as enablers. You know, we
have a big conference business. We've been fifteen years in the conferencing business sixteen years now, hundreds of thousands of delegates, and I've been trying to use that platform to convert traditional finance peace ball into at least thinking more about DeFi and so a lot of different organizations, a lot of different coins have partnered with us to help out with that experience, I know you got to go.
Final question, what are you most excited about in crypto for this year?
I'm excited about you.
Aman want to hang out with you. I want to do I need some thinking crypto swag.
We're going to do an in person interview. I recorded the financial District Wall Street.
I want to do that.
But in addition to you, the thing I'm most excited about is getting this legislation passed, because this legislation getting passed is a game opener for the traditional finance people. Yes, Larry Fink is there, Abigail Johnson of Fidelity is there. But the money center banks are coming and that's when you'll start to see the real maturity in the industry. And my big message to thinking crypto viewers and listeners is we're still very very very early.
Mm hmmm.
On that note, I'll let you go.
Thank you so much.
Are you looking good man? Yeah? Likewise, like the pocket square by the way, looking good.