Crypto is Changing TradFi! Franklin Templeton ETFs & Tokenization with Sandy Kaul - podcast episode cover

Crypto is Changing TradFi! Franklin Templeton ETFs & Tokenization with Sandy Kaul

Dec 18, 202440 min
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Episode description

Sandy Kaul is the Head of Innovation Strategies at Franklin Templeton. She joined me to discuss Franklin Templeton's crypto and tokenization initiatives.
Topics:
- Sandy's The Future of Investing: 2024/25 Edition Report
- Benji tokenization platform launching on Ethereum 
- Franklin Templeton's OnChain U.S. Government Money Market Fund (FOBXX) 
- Tokenization Outlook
- Impact of Crypto on TradFi 
- Franklin's Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs and plans for future Crypto ETFs 
- Crypto 2025 Outlook 
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Transcript

Speaker 1

Yeah, So this is something that Franklin Templeton has been building Tony since twenty seventeen, so we really believed very early in the potential of this space, and we've built a stack that is capable of issuing and managing a token. We've built a wallet system within that stack that is KYCAML compliant, so a regulated wallet system.

Speaker 2

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and USBC. They will be supporting Ripples's upcoming launch of r l U s D. So this is a really great rewards program and if you'd like to learn more, please visit the link in the description. Welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast. I'm your host, Tony Edward, and my guest today is Sandy Call who's the head of Innovation Strategies at Franklin Templeton. Sandy, great to have you back on.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Tony. It's so good to be here with you.

Speaker 2

Sandy. We spoke earlier in the year, and you know, Franklin Templeton continues to develop a lot of great crypto products, a lot of things around ETFs in tokenization, and of course I have a lot of questions for you about these latest developments. Let's start with a recent report you put out, which was the Future of Investment for Investing twenty twenty four slash twenty five edition.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So we do an annual survey, Tony, where we talk to people engaged in the broad investment industry, all over the world, So we talked to asset owners like pensions and sovereign wealth funds and family offices and endowments. We talked to intermediaries like private banks, wealth advisors, industry consultants. We talked to a lot of asset managers, crypto asset managers, traditional asset managers, alternative asset managers, and we talked to

a lot of fintech and academics. This year in our survey we covered our interviewees represented more than fifty trillion assets under management, so it's a pretty comprehensive survey we come out with each year, and in this year's survey, the big story is really about how we are starting to see an acceleration of the adoption of crypto rails into the traditional financial and capital markets ecosystem, and that this is really upgrading the fifty year old infrastructure that

we've been working on, and it really talks about the implications of us moving away from an account based system where I might have a portfolio, and in essence it might sound like a portfolio, but I might have five or six or seven different funds that sit under that portfolio, and each fund is in its own account and each fund has its own accounting, Right, I'm going to move away from that to a world where I have one wallet and everything is going to be in my wallet,

and everything in that wallet becomes interoperable and leverageable, and that is just going to mark a huge change in how the system works and open up huge opportunities for investing.

Speaker 2

So do you think we're at that tipping point of It's kind of what you mentioned earlier. Folks are recognizing this is the future. We need to get on board. It's no longer a fad or stigma. There's not a stigma around it. But how do we integrate blockchain into our ecosystem, the way we do things and so forth?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think it's I think what's really coming about is a few things happening at once, right. I think that, you know, the need to start thinking more seriously about digital currencies, given the successive stable coins, the need to really start to bring in some of the real innovations that the crypto ecosystem introduced in terms of twenty four to seven, trading, atomic settlement, programmable assets. These are things that are really needed to take huge costs of the industry.

And then I think it's also this idea that we're hitting the right regulatory moment. You know, we've seen sandboxes launched in Hong Kong, in Dubai, in Singapore, in Europe, in the UK. Now we are hearing that the DTCC in the US is announcing a sandbox. We have this change in administration coming in that's going to be more

crypto friendly. So I think it's the combination. It's the combination of more digital money, the improvements and efficiencies and cost savings that we can take in the industry because of the new rails and the right regulatory environment, and I think it's all coming together to create this acceleration that we're going to see in this thinking and in this rebuilding of the financial market infrastructure.

Speaker 2

Yeah, to your point, it seems like a perfect storm that took place this year. If you told me maybe back in October of last year, I wouldn't believe you that any of these things would have happened. That we'd have had the ETFs launch, Frankel, Templeton and other firms, pro crypto President, pro Crypto Congress coming in. Crypto being a ballid issue, maybe not the number one, but certainly a valid issue I mean a complete one to eighty from how things were last year.

Speaker 1

It's incredible. I wrote a paper on bitcoin back in twenty twenty one, and one of the things we talked about it is that one day we might hit a point where people might consider bitcoin, you know, part of a strategic reserve, right, And oh my goodness, some people went crazy when we said that. It said never in our lifetime, and here it is three years later, right, And so it's kind of crazy when you think about it that way.

Speaker 2

Yes, Andy, I mean that must be amazing to be validated in that way. You were ahead of the curve. We have a bigcoin strategic reserve bill on the table, a president who's ready to push it. You had states, I mean, just this morning was announced Texas wants to do this, Alabama, a bunch of other states. I was actually talking to Dennis Porter, the SATOCI Action Fund. He's been leading this charge. It's amazing what's taking place.

Speaker 1

Amazing. Yeah, it's so exciting too, because you know, you don't often get to see innovation in action, Tony, So this is awesome. I love it.

Speaker 2

Do you think with the United States taking this position and saying, hey, we want this big cooin strategic reserve. It's going to be a bit of game theory where other countries are going to be paying attention. Okay, we need to beat the US to this. Let's let's get going.

Speaker 1

Well, there was already that leak that Russia's thinking about it, right, you know, I would not be surprised to see more and more headlines right, Like, we could even start to see central banks announcing that they're going to hold bitcoin as part of the reserve. So I don't know, it's going to be very interesting.

Speaker 2

Yeah, twenty twenty five, very very interesting, and your report very timely. I was reading through it, really great stuff. I did want to ask you about Inkland Templeton's Benji tokenization platform. Now, you guys launch on the edetherom network, but maybe you start us off by telling us about this platform and what's the mission there.

Speaker 1

Yeah, So this is something that Franklin Templeton has been building Tony since twenty seventeen. So we really believed very early in the potential of this space, and we've built a stack that is capable of issuing and managing a token. We've built a wallet system within that stack that is

KYCAML compliant. So a regulated wallet system, we manage the keys in a secure location, a cold storage secure location for all of those wallets, and then we are able to do the transfer agency work so that you can issue regulated funds via this network. So we're able to do the subscriptions and the redemptions to the fund. We're

able to track the changes and shareholders. We're able to apply and issue out yield and interest payments and corporate actions all via this odd chain stack that we built, and we're able to issue all of the regulatory reporting that we need, and we're able to exchange within our network any stable coin or really any digital asset and move it directly into our tokenized money market funds that

provide yield. So this is a really comprehensive set of technologies that we built, and now we have the right regulatory permissions, you can transfer peer to peer within the network, and we're really now starting to find lots of demand and ways to deploy this, which is giving us an opportunity to really manage the assets that back A lot of these stable coins or back are looking for the

yield potential in our tokenized money market fund product. So it's a very exciting time for us, because we've been working for a long time in this system is now fully deployed, and we're really the only asset manager who is actually providing true exposure to our money market fund in a wallet. In your own wallet, you hold that token, right,

And this is not something that you know. There's other tokenized money market funds out there being offered, but they're not registered funds that can be held in your wallet, right, They're more kind of shareholder records.

Speaker 2

That's amazing. And I noticed that you're chain agnostics. So you started with Stellared and Polygon, I believe, app doos, Avalanche, Arbitrum and now etherorem Base as well, and which one I'm sorry, Base as well? Oh Base, that's Ray. So welcomes through a bit of the process. Let's say I'm an institution. I want to leverage your tokenization platform. Can I choose which chains or select a few or on all of them? Because I want to have interoperability.

Speaker 1

So when you're set up in our system, Tonny, you have a wallet on every one of those chains. So if you want to transfer your holdings from you know, the Ethereum chain to you know, the Stellar chain, you can simply instruct that in our app, and you could move those assets within our secure environment. They're never exposed, you know, to any type of bridge or cross chain transfer. It's all happening within our system. You're just basically moving it from one of your wallets to another.

Speaker 2

So it's permission and you have pretty much full control. It's not open to you know, general public, so to speak. Yeah. Now, I don't want to sound bearish or anything I get, but let's say one of these blockchains fails, you know, because not every blockchain will be a winner. What happens in that case are the respective token I shares burned.

Speaker 1

So we have the record of every share we issue and every owner of that share. And so one of the requirements that we built into the system to satisfy the sec was that we could reconstruct the the exposure, so we would burn tokens that we're on that chain and reissue you that equivalent amount of tokens on another chain of your choice.

Speaker 2

And are these tokenized shares, are they available globally or is it restricted to certain markets.

Speaker 1

It's a great question. So you know, right now with the FOBXX tokenized US Government Money Market Fund, that's a forty fund, so that has only been available to US investors. We are soon going to be launching and we've announced this already a Luxembourg based use It's fund SEECAB fund that is therefore going to open that up investors from I believe it's twenty additional countries are now going to be able to purchase and utilize those tokens because it's

in the next rapper. Its same product, just a different product rapper, and we will soon be at a point where we can have anyone in the globe able to purchase the money market fund that aligns to what they need to subscribe to from their regulatory jurisdiction.

Speaker 2

Wow. I want to explore that a bit because I've been thinking a lot about these things. In a traditional sense, let's say you have a money market fund. It's not accessible to everybody in the world, and there's certain restrictions and every country almost has its own SEC and so forth. But in a tokenized format, it's twenty four to seven and opens it up to everybody.

Speaker 1

Well, we had to do a lot of engineering to open it up to everybody, right, So we've had to launch all these versions of the fund so that you can get that exposure anywhere in the world. We're working on making and we have in some instances, made that accessible twenty four to seven. We're working on making that a universal set of functionality, but you know, it hasn't existed,

so we're having to build it. And you know, when you start working with an entire set of global regulators, things don't always move as quickly as you hope, but they are moving. And you know, our years and years of effort here are really starting to pay off now.

Speaker 2

And how does that change your business management in the sense of the twenty four to seven aspect, because well, you're sleeping someone else is treating it right unlike anything we've seen before. Because the stock market has an opening and closing a close belt, you have weekends, you have holidays and so forth. How does this change your business model?

Speaker 1

Yeah, well, so this is where we're really fortunate in doing this. As a global firm. We already run operations. We have a follow the Sun model, so there is always an operations team available from our Broad Franklin Templeton franchise. So this is where we're able to use the innovation of our digital asset unit and begin to really leverage off of the really expansive capabilities that we've built as a one point six trillion dollar asset manager.

Speaker 2

Now, going back to the fob xx, that's the on chain US Government money market fund, it's on base. What's the current AUM and also tell us about the USDC stable coin being being able to use that as an on and off ramp.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so we're just at about I think the last time I saw, we were about four hundred and fifty million AUM in our tokenized fobxx product. And we have built this exchange, this cash exchange facility within our Benji stack. So if you had stable coins, if you had USDC, you had another stable coin that you wanted to exchange and get that swept into our Benji product, we have

that facility built in. Now there is a tiny leg of custody that happens in the middle of that transaction, and we work with a digital custodian to make that happen. But it's seconds right. It feels to you as the end user that is happening seamlessly. If you really look at the mechanics of how it's happening. The stable coin is being redeemed, the cash is being reinvested and it's

being put into the money market fund. But that happens in such a short window that it feels like a seamless transaction.

Speaker 2

Oh for sure, Now city the stable coined wars are happening. There's so many issues. Yeah, like Ripple's going to launch earl USD, PayPal has p y USC. Of course, Tether the world's largest stable coin, is sure. And then I was talking to the folks at Agra Benek and they launch AUSD. Are you playing to open up support for all these other stable coins or are you going to be kind of selective like USDC and maybe some of the others.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Well, the facility we built can take any digital asset, including a crypto asset, right, so you know, the it really is going to come down to a manner of demand. Right when we start to see demand emerge to move from a stable coin into our tokenized money market fund, will activate that. We'll get the right arrangements set up and we'll be able to do that. So we built a coin agnostic exchange facility, and I think that's what's going to really be helping us in being able to

be you know, just like we're doing across blockchains. We don't want to have to have only one or two preferred stable coin providers. We think that stable coins are going to explode, that many organizations are going to issue them, so we want to be interoperable with all of that.

Speaker 2

Wow, I love that. I love that you guys are chaining agnostic, asset agnostic. That's really incredible. Tell us a bit about the institutions who are using your tokenization platform. I'm sure folks want to know who's doing this, who's who's looking to tokenize, and so forth.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so there's a whole mix of folks, and it's it's really interesting. Right. So we've got, you know, we've got a number of you know, venture capital funds that have basically portfolio companies that they need to fund over time. Right, So they don't release all that funding in one go to their portfolio companies. They release that in stages, and so they're managing that pool of capital and the managing the distribution of funds of that capital to their portfolio company.

So that's one type of institution. Similarly, we're starting to see interest from treasuries, right, corporate treasuries, institutional treasuries, crypto treasuries where they might have multiple jurisdictional legal entities that they need to move cash between. We're seeing that emerge

as a really interesting use case as well. We're really starting to see interest from many hedge funds and interests, you know, from many trading counterparties who want yield from you know, the overnight reserves they're holding, or want yield from the collateral they're posting. Right. This is another big use case that we've been seeing, and people who are doing lending are looking for opportunities to have a collateral backing that also pays yield rather than just holding a

stable point that doesn't pay any yield. So you're starting to see a bunch of different use cases emerging that all really represent new ways of engaging in business that provide real edges in terms of either cutting time to get payments distributed, cutting costs, making it more efficient from a collateral perspective, bringing in some of the real positive things from traditional finance into the new crypto ecosystem in

terms of being able to apply yield on collateral. So these are all I think great use cases that we've been really uncovering and working with our clients on.

Speaker 2

And as we head into twenty twenty five, do you expect these activities to increase, that more firms will come into place? And it's made I don't know if this question makes since with the push towards tokenization, is there any middleman being cut out here? Is there any disruption of any entities who may have been part of the whole system before.

Speaker 1

Well, I think that, you know, let me answer that in two ways. I think that twenty twenty four has been a real year of building for us because, as you mentioned, we've been expanding across multiple geography, so we've

needed to work with many sets of regulators. We've been launching new products, we've been building out across many chains, right, so we've been really spending a bulk of our twenty twenty four getting the base in place for what we expect to be a very very active and twenty twenty five where we really see utilization of all these capabilities surge. And so I think that, you know, we've been really prepping and getting everything in place for this now not to be a novelty off to the side, but to

become a core business of what we do. I think at the same time, you know, there's many intermediaries that see potential issues with this new set of rails threatening their core business model. And you know, the more innovative and creative of those entities have been very engaged in thinking about how can they too evolve with the evolving ecosystem. And so I think there will be a set of them that are able to you know, adapt their business

model become really successful in the new world. But there's probably also going to be a set that wait too long, or don't act fast, or don't act creatively enough or fast enough, and they may find that their business model is under threat. So as this whole kind of new set of engagement and trading and collateral opportunities open up, right, I think that, you know, you're going to really start to see who are the winners and who are the losers.

Speaker 2

It's fascinating to watch that play out. I'm a I'm big into history and a study technology, and I've watched disruption happen through the internet, the growth of the Internet, and it's fascinating. I think the same thing is happening here. Of course, a blockchain.

Speaker 1

The history major myself, Tony history major myself.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I know, because there's a good and a bad to that, you know, because you know, you see companies go out of business. But that's just the nature of the business cycle and technology and the history of how we progress as humans civilization. So it's interesting.

Speaker 1

It's unless you have to have that as the threat, because otherwise, you know, there's not that incentive to innovate, right, So you need that incentive to innovate.

Speaker 2

That's true. Let's talk about the ETFs. So Franklin Templeton of course has a big one in ethere and metfs. What we've seen though, overall, for all the ETFs out there, incredible inflows. I mean, Sandy, I'm blown away, and I'm like where this thing is going really fast, is really rapid, and i know, like collectively all the ETFs are going to surpass Stoshi if they haven't already. What are your thoughts on the success of the et aps.

Speaker 1

Well, I think it's just showing that there's huge demand to be able to participate in these new marketplaces. And you know, because it's been such a different way of obtaining exposure, a lot of people who don't have confidence in their ability to use these new technologies have had a hunger to invest but haven't really understood or gotten themselves comfortable with investing in the options that had been available.

And now that this isn't a familiar ETF wrapper, I can go into it via my brokerage account, I can put it in an order for it, I can ask my advisor to buy it for me. Right. I think that this is really showing how much untapped demand there

has been. And I still think we're really just at the very very beginning stages of it, right, And I think that we have I hate to say this with the success that we've already had, but I can honestly say, I don't think you've seen anything yet, right, Like, this is really probably going to be just the beginning, and I think it's going to really progress very quickly and

become an absolutely standard part of everyone's portfolio. Probably within five years, we'll kind of look back and say, Wow, was it ever controversial that you held crypto in your portfolio? When was that? Right? I do think we're moving towards that day, and I think these ETFs are really helping pave the way for that, because it's allowing the public at large who don't feel comfortable getting into crypto technologies

to participate, right. You know, there's a lot of people my age and older that like never quite got super comfortable with social media, yet we still participate in the online world. This is the way I think that you're seeing a broader and broader part of the population really be brought into the innovation that's happening in the crypto ecosystem.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Well, put and I know a lot of people are intimidated by private keys and storage of that, and if I lose it, I lose my crypto. So ETFs put all those worries to bed, and it just makes.

Speaker 1

It exactly yep.

Speaker 2

What do you think is driving the appetite for this acid class? And one of the things I keep thinking about is like what Paul Tudor Jones said, I think back in twenty twenty where you said bitcoin and crypto is the fastest horse in the race. Yes, you can invest in real estate in the stock market, but nothing moves like crypto. And maybe it's the global reach, the hardcap supply on many of these tokens, and that it is. You know, we've seen tech eat a lot of industries

and suck them in. So maybe bitcoin in the etherorem and so forth because of tokenization all these things is sucking in the traditional assets on top of it. I don't know, do you think it's a combination all these things.

Speaker 1

I think it's all those things. And I think, honestly, you know, there's a growing frustration, particularly here, I think in the US and in many of the big developed nations about the opportunities that are available in the traditional markets. Right. If you look in the US, we have seen the number of publicly listed companies confect by almost seventy five percent since the nineteen nineties. Right, There's simply not as

many public companies out there. A lot of that growth opportunity has moved into the private equity markets, and most individuals are excluded from the private equity markets. And so you know, where is the small cap stock that you could buy twenty five years ago and own until it became a megacap and make a fortune owning that security. There's not as many of those opportunities out there for today's investors, particularly young investors that don't have a lot

of money to invest. And so I think that these crypto tokens and this new crypt dough ecosystem, it's almost like a twenty first century investment option. And I think that we've seen the world change so much. There's many I think who have a sentiment of I don't see as many opportunities in the equity markets, and I kind of think of that as like the baby boomers investments, and I want an investment to feel more in tune with the world where it's heading today and where it's going.

So I think that there's also this appetite for something that again democratizes and brings a broader set of the population into this ability to really invest money and potentially get rich. And you know, I think that that's kind of I think what Paul Tudor Jones got to in that statement, But I think it's more foundational than that.

It's about this democratization and it's about kind of taking back I think some of this potential that has gone to the institutions and to the ultra wealthy and has kindind of moved away in many instances from the average individual.

Speaker 2

I think you hit the nail on the head there, because it's also in line with the sentiment that many people are feeling about I can't afford a home. It's the American dream that seems so far from me, I don't care about bonds, and the bonds have not performed that well gold, like you said, it seems like a boomer asset. And then the stock market, well, yeah, I get some tesla, I get a little bit of a video,

whatever it may be. They're just there's not that broader appeal and like the smaller companies where it seems affordable. But I can put it a fraction into ethereum or bigcoin or some other all coin and do better based on and.

Speaker 1

I could do it myself. Right, So I think there's a real appeal in that too, is that I'm not being forced to go and open these accounts and talk to these intermediaries and right, I mean I think that, you know, people are so independent in today's world and so enabled by technology, and I feel like these investments really fit with the life that people live today.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and I'll give it an anecdotal evidence of from from my personal experience. You know, I think before the Internet, I would not have understand investing. There was no trading view where I can go look at charts and understand what's happening and even get financial data. I can go to the Fed's website CEE to M two money supply. You can see a lot of things now and it's

available to everybody, so we have more education. To your point, I can watch someone like you, Sandy on YouTube, where before I could or listen to you on that because I couldn't get access to you before. It was gatekeepers right, and I couldn't walk into Franklin Temple and say, hey, I want to spend an hour with Sandy and have her teach me about these things. So it's a very different world.

Speaker 1

It's a different world, and I think that you know, it's a world where people want to feel they have knowledge and control and an ability to take a hand and shape their own fate. And I think that's what this new ecosystem is really well suited to do. It's capturing I think a populism in how you act and how you behave that's just not available in a lot of aspects of people's lives.

Speaker 2

I want to ask you about the Crypto Index ETF. So you guys filed for that bigcoin and e theorem. I think the SEC pushed it back to January. We know there's a regime change taking place. We got Paul Atkins coming in. We know has been pro crypto, pro crypto, new government coming in. What do you expect that ETF to get approved and other all coin ETFs to get approved next year?

Speaker 1

Yeah? Well, so you know, I'm not allowed to speak directly about anything we have a filing on, but let me make the case for why I think a multi coin ETF is so important. You know, we have seen so you just because we're creating this exciting new world doesn't mean we could throw out all the lessons that we have learned through one hundred two hundred years of financial history. And I think one of the most important things we've learned is you don't want single asset exposure, right.

You know, you don't go and you're not having you know, a Navidia ETF. You have QQQ, right, So you want this diversification that comes by spreading your investment across multiple

assets and the registration that we're looking to get. You know, it would start out with ethereum and bitcoin, but it would be an index product that would grow based on the market capitalization of the underlying token, so that you get as the end, as the ecosystem itself gets diversified, your exposure gets diversified, and that's the flexibility that I

think we're going to start to see. There's always a lot of enthusiasm when someone says, oh, I'm filing for this ETF or that ETF, but they've all been single asset ETFs, and we still feel like the need is to go towards diversified portfolio exposure. It's safer for the investor, it's better in the long run from performance perspective, it

gives you more protection against unexpected news or problems. So you know, that's our thinking there is we want to take our learnings by being one of the most successful traditional financial market asset managers and bring that into this new ecosystem by starting to create this and we have been running model portfolios for over three years multi coin portfolios.

In fact, our first multi coin portfolio just passed its three year anniversary and the average churn has been over sixty five percent, So that's a pretty good return when you're talking a multi coin portfolios. So we want to be able to really think about bringing that x bertise into the ETF wrapper over time.

Speaker 2

And do you anticipate that once there's more clarity, you may add other coins in the top ten like your XRP, Soalonas and so forth.

Speaker 1

Exactly.

Speaker 2

It's interesting. You know, I agree with the your thoughts on the index ETF because I'm thinking about not myself because I'm fully in the crypto, but the average Joe and Jane. Yeah, just give me the top five or a top ten, right, makes it?

Speaker 1

Yea, Just let me have exposure. I don't I don't really know much about it. I don't want to have to pick. Just let me have what is a good exposure, right m.

Speaker 2

M yeah, yeah, that definitely makes sense. I think that will help usher in a lot more investors that they don't have to pick or choose. Just hey, just give me exposure.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I would love to get your thoughts on if you're able to talk about it. But like the upcoming government and you know, could we see crypto legislation push to send it like we mentioned earlier, Paul Atkins coming in at the SEC. You got a Treasury Secretary's going to be pro crypto and so forth.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think you know, look, it's been one hundred signal so you know, if we take the signals at their phase value, which I think we should, right that this is going to be a very pro crypto administration in the US, and you know how quickly they can act. Well, you know, we see how quickly bills get passed in Congress, So you know, I think some of our enthusiasm has to be tempered by the sausage making, as they call it.

But I think that the tent is there, and I think that you know, there will be a lot of openness to the right messages, right like when we talk about the opportunities for individuals, the ability to provide more you know, democratized access, the ability to do this in a way and help regulators understand that, you know, tracking assets on blockchain is actually more effective than the way

that they've been tracking traditional security. So a lot of arguments that people have been making that are very true and very important, arguments that have had trouble breaking through, I think will now have a much warmer reception and that will help, I think, open up a lot of doors,

and I think you'll see rapid progress. And you know, once the US starts moving quickly, you know the rest of the world will accelerate as well, because no one wants to lose the edge that they've been trying to build. While the US has been slow, so it feels like we're just really getting ready for takeoff. That's kind of what I think the sentiment feels right now. And you know, it may take a few more months than people think it's going to take, but I see it as a

very positive direction. And I think twenty twenty five will be remembered as the year of crypto, to be honest with you, Wow.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well uh. And I think even just the the end of regulation by enforcement and that fear environment, even if they, like you said, Congress doesn't even get to push the bill through, just the end of that and more, even if they're neutral, like we're not we're not trying to kill you or stop you, right, We're just gonna okay, come in and talk to us. Let's let's get things going. It may move slower because the government, but just that environment, we so much better.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And I think it's also it's it's the underlying message. Right when when it was enforcement by you know, registrate, regulation by enforcement, the message was you're doing something bad and we're going to catch you. And now I'm hoping and I think that we will see the message turn into we're excited about what you're doing, let's do it in a responsible way.

Speaker 2

Mm hmm. Yeah, it's twenty twenty five. I'm excited. It's good, fascinating to watch it unfold because it's so funny. You see, President Electron I'm constantly talking about Crypto now, and I think just this morning he was at the New York Stock Exchange. I don't remember. I think he was ringing the bell and then he was asked by Jim Kramer by Crypto and it's it's amazing. Like I said, if you told me this a year ago, in twenty twenty three, I would not have believed you.

Speaker 1

Oh yeah, never underestigate how bizarre reality could become donated.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you know, you mentioned something and it's something I've been talking to people about. You know, if the government was running on blockchain, how much more efficient it could be and accountability, where's our funds going, where's this spending? Putting voting system with blockchain in place? Do you think we will eventually get there? I know it probably won't happen anytime soon, but maybe in ten years we see all this stuff running on blockchain.

Speaker 1

I mean, you know, just take voting as the simplest thing of all, like everybody is so freaked out that there's gonna be all this fraud in voting and who's a registered voter and who's not, and who's a legal voter and who's not just voting a loan. Could you imagine if the voting records were on Boxedin, it would become completely clear you're either registered or you're not right.

And I think that you know, or you think about your tax returns and how many pieces of paper really have to get printed out to file a tax return. You know, these are things that I think just beg for improved efficiency. So you know, I do think that you will see all of that start to happen over the coming years.

Speaker 2

That would be so great to have to have that done. I think regardless of what political party is stand, I think people agree we want our government to work better for us. We want more transparency, we don't want money getting lost, and we want we don't want all these things. Maybe this is the this will event, These problems will be legacy problems and we'll have you know better.

Speaker 1

Innovation isn't you know, Innovation isn't limited to a political party, right. Innovation is about the entire populace being able to benefit and so, you know, I think that, you know, you've got to kind of separate how you feel about, you know, what's happening from a political standpoint, from understanding that you know, there are times when new technologies come in and change everything, and we're entering one of those times now.

Speaker 2

Sandy, amazing, always great insights. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm really excited for the future updates around Franklin Templeton. We'll have to have you back on next year because you guys are doing a lot of great things.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much, Thank you so much, with a great conversation. I really enjoyed being on the show.

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