All Episodes

October 20, 2025 • 29 mins
Since the crypto-friendly Trump administration took over, applications for altcoin ETFs have surged. Over 130 are right now waiting for SEC approval. The government shutdown has appeared to have delayed the approval of a variety of altcoin ETFs, however, there might be some hope.

~This episode is sponsored by Tangem~
Tangem ➜ https://bit.ly/TangemPBN
Use Code: "PBN" for Additional Discounts!

GUEST: Zach Pandl, Head of Research, Grayscale Investments
Grayscale Crypto ETFs ➜ https://bit.ly/GrayscaleETFs

00:00 Intro
00:10 Sponsor: Tangem
00:45 Shutdown ending this week?
02:40 Will SEC accelerate ETF launches?
04:00 Is there real demand for altcoin ETFs?
06:00 Single asset ETPs vs Bundle products
08:30 Regulation sooner than expected?
11:00 China Trade deal soon?
13:40 Thoughts on Fed payments crypto summit
15:45 Stablecoin adoption expectation
17:15 Staking ETFs coming soon?
19:00 Will we get staking ETPs during a Government Shutdown?
20:15 Do ETFs need staking to compete with DATs?
22:00 Solana vs XRP ETF: Which will launch with most sucess?
23:30 James Seyffart: Solana is becoming an institutional favorite
26:40 New highs coming or is crypto done this cycle?
28:30 Outro

#XRP #Crypto #Ethereum
~Crypto ETFs Launching... Even With Government SHUT DOWN?! 🤯 Grayscale INTERVIEW~
⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺⎺


Join our community!

Diamond Circle Email (FREE)➜ https://bit.ly/pbnmembership
Private Telegram Group (FREE) ➜ https://t.me/+nISqoMxrok40NTcx

Subscribe on YouTube ✅ https://bit.ly/PBNYoutubeSubscribe
X/Twitter 📱 http://bit.ly/PBNtwitter

Get official PBN merch! ➜ https://merch.paulbarronnetwork.com/
~ The Best Self Custody Wallet ➜ https://tangem.com/en/ Use Code PBN for Additional Discounts!
~ The Best Crypto Exchange ➜ Coinbase, get up to $200 in crypto - coinbase-consumer.sjv.io/BARRON
~ Looking for the best tax havens for Crypto? Free Month with iTrust Capital ➜ Use PROMO CODE - PAUL BARRON https://rebrand.ly/PAULBARRON
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Looking ahead to this week, market volatility could be a
big thing.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Today.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
We'll break it down. We've got a special guest. Let's
just jump right into it. I do want to thank
our sponsor, and that is Tangent. This is where you
can get into self custy. This is a physical wallet,
works with your phone, very easy to set up, super secure,
one of the best wallets out there. I would recommend
trying out self custody if you haven't done it, this
is the way to go. Just go over to tangum

(00:24):
dot com. You can use our link down below to
help you guys get going and begin your self custody journey.
All right, I want to bring into the show Zach Pandel,
who is the head of research over at Greyscale Investment.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Zach, how are you.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
I'm great, Paul terrific to be back on with you
again today.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, good to see you.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
I want to go into really the first topic of
the day, and this is really all about the government
shutdown we saw. Advisor Hassett says we could see a
government shutdown likely to end sometime this week. So that's
positive news, or at least it appears to be positive
news when you look at the the government shutdown and
what we've seen in general from the crypto markets, but

(01:04):
more importantly getting these ETFs approved.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
How quickly do you.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Think we're going to see reaction in the market, whether
it's ETF approval or the market correcting itself.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, the government shutdown is dragging on at this point,
now twenty days long. I believe the prior record is
thirty five days from Trump's first term. And I hope
Kevin Hassett's guidance is right. You know, he's a good sport,
but I do fear that this could drag onto a

(01:35):
new record, given the polling data, the party positioning. I'm
not sure I see the end to it happening this week.
We will see now. Of course, some of the government
stays open critical functions. Unfortunately for the crypto ETF or
ETP providers, one of the functions that does slow down

(01:56):
is approval of these types of products. As your viewers know,
we've been eager to bring to market lots of essentially
ald coin ETF or ETP products, and we still think
that that is coming relatively soon, but the government shutdown
has definitely slowed down the process. So investors will have
to wait just a little bit longer to get access

(02:17):
to these types of products, Zach, with what.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
You know of the SEC process to get these approved,
and you look at what's happening with the SEC right
now with Atkins and a host of commissioners that have
been somewhat pro crypto and Adkins seems to be dropping
nuggets left and right on Twitter in variety of interview statements.
Do you feel like this is a will it be

(02:41):
kind of like a pent up demand where they'll accelerate
coming out of this shutdown and really get to work
on getting these approved.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
I think in general that's right.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
You know, we have a cooperative relationship with regulators and
we want to respect their process. But the SEC has
already clarified how this is going to work, essentially by
creating what they call generic listing standards. They're not going
to go one by one through every cryptotoken and to
say this one Kennedy ETF and this one can be

(03:12):
an ETF. Instead, they're going to give us a set
of generic criteria, and if the assets meet those criteria,
they can become an exchange traded product ETP or ETF
as most people call them in the marketplace.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Today. So I do think it'll be a kind of big.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
Bang event over the next couple of months, with lots
of different products coming to market, and that'll be both
single asset products like we have for bitcoin, a theory
asset it's a hold, just a single token, as well
as a variety of diversified products. We already have a
product like that in the market today, a top five

(03:50):
tokens product.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
We think we'll see more of that as well.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
So I do think investors can expect a big bang
type of event once the government reopens.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
I like that sounds good to me, I think in
the sense of really seeing the sec actually get out
there and get to work on this all coin ETF's
face a very decisive October right now. And to your
mention right there the new listing standards. But a few
points that we're in this article specifically by you. You
had a handful of statements within this that I thought

(04:21):
were interesting. Solana and XRP stand out, and this is
because of their existing futures market, and you cautioned against
expecting bitcoin level inflows. Why do you think that will
be the case with a market primed and what feels
like a little bit of a pent up demand for
these kinds of products.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
I think there will be high investor demand for these
types of products, and as you.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Say, to some degree pent up demand.

Speaker 4 (04:49):
You know, we call them old coins, but really there
are tons of the innovation that's happening in public blockchain
technology in the crypto industry is beyond bitc coin. Now,
bitcoin is still the big dog, more than two trillion
dollar asset, and it's going to you know, dominate the
crypto market for some time. But other assets that you mentioned, Solana, XRP,

(05:15):
you know, these are important parts of the ecosystem as well,
and I do think that they will also be very
popular with investors. So old coins maybe we should move
beyond that term. You know, these are other innovative technologies
based on public blockchain technology besides a bitcoin, and there's
nothing alt about them in some shape or form.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
They're really key parts of the ecosystem.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
I think that they will be very popular from investors
once we can bring these assets to market.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well you look at it, it's kind of like in reality,
there's a handful that I think fall into that obviously ethereum,
we've already seen it's performance. Solana definitely I think its
day is going to becoming XRP, another big winner out
there outside of bitcoin. You start to roll into some
of the other assets like suy Avalanche, et cetera, kind

(06:05):
of its own mag seven in at least in the
crypto world. Now, you also made a statement in here
that I thought was interesting. Not only are bringing these
single asset ETPs to market, but also the first diversified
index based crypto ETP. So my question is this, is
you think the single assets will do better or these
you know, these bundles and these basket products.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
What works for you guys?

Speaker 4 (06:28):
Yeah, well, the question really is what works for investors.
You know, we're trying to service our clients and what
you see in other asset classes that the index based
investing approach is very popular with investors, and of course
it has a long track record of success in other
asset classes and frankly, a pretty good track record of

(06:49):
success in crypto. We've been running these products since twenty eighteen,
diversified index based approaches to crypto investing, but we're thrilled
to now be able to offer them those products as ETFs.
You know, the structure that investors enjoy. So just in
the last month, we were able to uplist our Grayscale

(07:09):
coin Desk Crypto five ETF product, So it's top five
tokens by market cap and that covers about ninety percent
of crypto market cap just with those five tokens. In
my personal view, these products will be even more popular
than the single asset products in the longer run, because
many investors don't want to be stock pickers, they don't

(07:31):
want to be token pickers. They just want access to
the asset class and this will be the avenue for
them to get that, just like the S and P
five hundred or the aggregate bond index in fixed income.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, I think you know, when you talk to normal
people who have not been in this space and they're
just getting exposure to crypto for the very first time,
they're typically going through a lot of these exchange traded products.
So I kind of agree with you there, except for
maybe the top three or I still feel like Solana XRP.
Those communities kind of vibrate into other communities that haven't

(08:08):
been in crypto. Those are the ones that I think
will stick around and probably do pretty well individually.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
But we'll see. It's you know, it's still very young.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
I think both types will be a very popular diversified
single acid products. We're delighted to offer both and give
consumers the choice.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah, for sure, Zach.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
We have been watching watching some very unusual anomalies happening
on our own channel.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
As you guys know, we cover a.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Lot of the DC topics over the last several years.
We also do deep dives on regulatory fronts. We're seeing
some very unusual scenarios playing out on many of our videos.
And the reason I say this is because it appears
that we've got something happening in DC. We've got a
lot of C suite guys that are attending this new

(08:55):
Senate Democrat pro Crypto meeting on Wednesday. This is going
to discuss market structural legislation. So my question, when you
look at the lineup here pretty stellar, along with the
demand of what we're seeing just on our own data
of videos being watched, is something happening right now in
DC where we may see accelerated approval on regulation.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
What's your opinion on that.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
There is definitely something happening in DC, and to some
extent that's been happening all year. But I think you're
right that this process is going to pick up. Look,
President Trump came into office with a mandate from voters
to bring regulatory clarity to the crypto industry here in
the US. And this is not a republican issue or

(09:41):
democratic issu is a bipartisan issue. Crypto blockchain technology is
popular with voters, and so it's great that our legislators,
our elected officials, are dealing with this now. We had
one big down payment in July, as your viewers know,
the Genius Act, which was targeted at stable coins, critically
important piece of our industry. But we really need to

(10:04):
broaden that out to other aspects of market structure, how
exchanges are going to work, how disclosure requirements are going
to work. Crypto is growing up, it's getting integrated into
the mainstream financial system. It's important that we have that
regulatory clarity. I do think that we can expect this
process to pick up steam, heading it into the end
of the year. It might take until Q one or

(10:26):
so until you know, ink hits the paper, but we're
optimistic that this process is moving forward on a bipartisan basis,
which is really critical for its long run sustainability.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
I know there has been a lot of Democrats that
have kind of I won't say this is really not
an issue of crossing party lines, because this has been
a very bipartisan approach. I think from really about midway
through once that we felt like we were able to
defeat Senator Warren's anti crypto army, we started to see
people coming to their senses over the you know, really

(10:58):
over the last eighteen months, which is kind of set
us up for some good things to happen in crypto
for sure. Speaking of good things to happen, we've got
to get a trade deal with China. We get this
in from watching Guru. President Trump says Chinese President Jiji
Ping says, maybe we're open to a trade deal here. Now,
many people would say, hey, this is Trump always you know,

(11:19):
chickening out or is he carrying.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
A big stick?

Speaker 1 (11:23):
What's the strategy here in terms of how Trump is
approaching trade with these countries and do you think we're
going to actually get a deal with China?

Speaker 4 (11:33):
Well, it's a tough question and a challenge for investors
to try to navigate these things. As a general matter,
I think you can expect the intense negotiations to pick
up before these one on one meetings before these summit
events and then for them to de escalate, you know,
close to that event, around that time of event. Look,

(11:54):
the US and China the two world's most important economies.
Complete the coupling between these economies is infeasible for both parties,
and so we're going to continue trade relations on some terms,
but you know, there'll be new barriers in place to
protect things like national security interests and to some extent,
to support domestic manufacturing. I think President Trump has offered

(12:17):
a pretty clear message along those lines, and also I
frankly think that that is also a bipartisan view at
this point. So we can always you know, pick out
the approach to negotiating. But this is where we're heading
is you know, a bit more barriers between the US
and China, but continued trading over the long run.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
And that's okay.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
That sounds like it'll be in the best binster stuff
of both countries. So what does that mean for crypto investors?
I would say, don't lose sight of the bigger picture.
We do have challenges government shutdown, trade tensions, you know,
some credit questions and pockets of the of the lending markets,
but crypto fundamentals look solid. You know, I've never thought

(12:57):
that blockchain technology was more important for the world than
it is today. So you know, keep an eye on
those key trends, and you know, try not to get
too distracted by some of this a trade and political noise.
That's what I'm trying to do. That's the message we're
giving to our clients.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Well, I think a lot of people get lost in
this idea of short term thinking as opposed to It
depends on what your time horizon is. For many of
you guys watching, maybe it is three months. But for
most people, I think investing in anything, whether it's S
and P, whether it's real estate, whether it's stocks and bonds,
you get into scenarios and crypto people are starting to
stretch that time horizon out quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
So I would agree with you.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
I think the good side is still yet to come
for a lot of what's happening in crypto. Speaking of that,
the FED is hosting a conference. What do you make
of this? This is a conference on payments. You've got
chain Link, Paxos, Circle, Coinbase, and a whole slew of
panelists that are going to be there. You've seen and
talked to a lot of these companies and you've had

(13:57):
a chance to kind of understand what they're ideas are.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
In general.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
This is the FED who has been very i should
say relentlessly in a position of I feel like anti
crypto overall, when you wouldn't let banking charters to come in.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Why do you think this is happening now? What do
you think is going to happen from it?

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Well, it's overdue, That's why it's it's happening now. You know,
the Federal Reserve is one of the key banking regulators
and the key payments regulator. And this is financial technology
that's coming of age that has regulatory support from things
like the Genius Act. It's critically important that the Federal

(14:40):
Reserve plays a role in understanding that technology and ensuring
that there are consumer protections and protections to the traditional
financial system. So they're they're doing their job, and I
think this is this is part of a part of that.
So I think this will be a very productive conversation
between industry. I do think of the Federal Reserve staffer

(15:00):
and officials are pretty well informed at this point. You know,
it's taken a few years, but I think that they
have come around to the idea that stable coins are
just payments innovation, and that they should be supportive of
efficiencies in the financial system and payments just like everything else,
because that happens on a blockchain. No, there's no reason
to be concerned about about that.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
So this is overdue.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
It's a great sign exactly the thing that we would
expect from our key regulatory agencies like the Federal Reserve.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
Zach, you've been in the business for a while, you've
had a chance to see this. Really this innovation take
hold around stable coins. Do you think that the estimate
around stable cooin adoption over the next couple of years.
I mean some people are throwing out like three trillion
to four trillion dollar numbers potential.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Do you think that's real.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Do you think we could see that kind of real
uptick in stable coin usage.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
Well, it's not real until it happens, but it is
a realistic expectation, I would put it that way. You know,
this is an innovation that's bringing consumer benefits, lower cost transactions,
higher transparency transactions, faster transactions, things like this, And so
if innovation brings consumer benefits, consumers will adopt it and

(16:18):
it's financial technology, so it is important that it is
regulated and it's protecting the financial system as a whole.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
So all those pieces are coming into place.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
We have a great piece of technology that's bringing benefits,
we have a regulatory framework and understanding by agencies like
the Federal Reserve. I absolutely think these types of big
numbers are realistic numbers for where stable coin adoption can
go over time, and I think larger than that.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Frankly, in the fullness of time.

Speaker 4 (16:46):
We're just getting started on this really key payments innovation
that will be ubiquitous in the future. And you know,
we're here at Greyscale teaching people how to invest in
that premise. You know, invest in the infrastructure, whether it's
ethereum or chain link or other aspects of the ecosystem.
How do you invest in that core thesis of stable

(17:07):
coin adoption?

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Well, you look at that.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
You guys are also launching the first US spot crypto
ETF with staking, So you're going to let investors in
blockchain earn blockchain rewards in regulated products. Do you think
we're going to see ETF staking soon across a variety
of different projects out there?

Speaker 2 (17:26):
How close are we.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
We are thrilled to have been able to be the
first to offer staking in our exchange traded products. You know,
investors want income on their assets, and there's lots of
different ways to do that. Of course, coupons on bonds,
divided on stocks, even things like selling options can be
a way to generate income. Staking rewards are a unique

(17:50):
source of income in the financial system, and you know,
diversification is key across your investment, so to be able
to build in a diversified source of income is something
very special, you know, something that is truly unique, and
so we're thrilled to be able to offer this now
in our Ethereum exchange traded products. Already, we've begun this

(18:12):
in our Solana Private Trust, a product that we hope
to be uplisting as an ETF relatively soon, and I
think many others will follow in that process. You know,
grey Scale has been working on these issues for years,
so you know, we were maybe ready to go a
little bit faster than others on this topic, and so

(18:33):
are already able to offer these in some of our products,
but we expect that to be rolled out very broadly
across our product suite over time. So just the beginning
with Ethereum and Solana. But I think investors can anticipate
if a product, if the blockchain offers staking, that your
investment products should be offering staking rewards to some shape

(18:55):
or form with appropriate kind of risk management around that.
So a unique source of income. We're thrilled to be
able to have those in market today.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
Zach, do you think we could get this even if
the government shut down does not get you know, finalized.
Do you think this is something that can happen anyway,
because this could go on for another month or two
as you were kind of indicating that's right.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
Yeah, we are, you know, doing everything that we can
during the government shutdown. That includes the introduction of staking,
so something that we were able to accomplish despite the
uncertainty in Washington.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
And you know, watch this space.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
I think the you know, the product launches may not
entirely come to a halt despite the government shutdown, so
we are working extremely hard and always cooperatively with regulators.
It has definitely slowed things down slightly, but watch this space.
I think there there could be more crypto ETP products

(19:56):
launched even while the government remains shut down.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
And that's interesting to the hard work of lots of
my colleagues.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
So I can't make a promise here today, but I
think that that is possible even if we don't turn
the lights on in DC right away.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Hey, listen, I like the optimism for sure.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
In comparison, if you look at the DAT versus ETF
route that many people are trying to figure out right now,
this could be the key thing for ETFs to kind
of compete with.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
The DAT digital asset treasuries.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
For some of you guys out there, you probably have
been tracking micro Strategy or maybe you're tracking bitmind the
two top when it comes to bitcoin and ethereum, do
you think that is a requirement, the staking component that
would actually make these two asset classes somewhat equal in
terms of investment thesis.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
I do think that staking rewards are critical to be
offering the best investor experience in the exchange traded products
or ETFs. You know, this is a source of our
reward that it's available. If investors were to stake with
Solona on chain, for example, we want to make sure
that they are capturing that reward if they're going through

(21:11):
the ETP product structure. There's lots of reasons why the
ETPs are beneficial to investors, you know, even simple things
like managing your accounts and your taxes and all that
type of type of thing, and so that's why they're
so popular.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
But it is important that we offer.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
These rewards, and we're delighted to be first to the
line on that process. You know, Grayscale has been an
innovator in this space for a long time. We're delighted
to be able to innovate on the first diversified products,
the first staking ETFs, and I'm sure others will follow
in our wake. But yes, it is a critically important

(21:46):
piece of offering the most efficient ETP structure for our investors,
and we're delighted to be able to do that.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
I'm looking at the Grayscale AUMs and kind of just
the line list of trust that you've got out there
that are set up for these products, and.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
You can kind of see it.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
I mean, we're seeing a fairly centralized group of at
the top. If you compare the Slana ETF and the
XRP ETF, both of which could be going live any
minute when these do launch, which do you think is
going to launch with the most success.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
Well, that's difficult to say.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
You know, I sometimes joke that these questions are like
asking me to decide my favorite child or something like that.
I think I really am, you know, of a fan
in different ways of many of the top assets. And
you know, we are happy to engage investors on our
kind of research level to the extent that they want

(22:48):
to kind of go deeper. Starting with a diversified approach
is a very natural way to begin most investors crypto journeys.
So top our crypto five ETF product, for example, is
a great way to begin. And if investors want a
little bit more XRP, or they want a little bit
more Solana, they can certainly add that all a kart

(23:10):
on top of the diversified approach, and we're happy to
walk people through that process. But I do think that
each of these blockchains offers something unique. You know, they're
each trying have different designs, different goals. They're offering something unique.
It's difficult to decide among the favorites. I think owning
most of the large cap asset is a very reasonable

(23:31):
way for investors to begin their crypto journey.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
I want to go over to a clip. This is
James Sayer coming over from Bloomberg. He made a statement
here about Solana that kind of caught me a little
bit off guard. I mean, you kind of know it,
I think when you have been around the Solana ecosystem
for a while, But for him to say it was
quite interesting.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Let me play this for you.

Speaker 5 (23:52):
And also, I think there's a lot of pieces of
things that blockchain can be helpful to that doesn't require
like extreme decentralization the way that coin. But there's also
people that would like things to be more efficient and
cleaner and move faster. And a lot of people in
tratfy like the idea of like getting some of this
decentralized benefit everybody on the same ledger. But also it'd
be pretty damn efficient and not slow and not cumbersome

(24:13):
the bridge between different things. So I think all of
that is like critical for what's going on here. Yeah,
and obviously part of it is the Trump administration and
this new SEC is leading heavily into this idea of
tokenized assets. We're seeing all the big exchanges NICY, Nasdaq,
CBO looking at token is stock and different things along
those lines, and Solana is in the conversation every time
those things come up.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
So Solana's in the conversation.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
This is talking about institutional awareness, which is usually the
first step in the right direction when you get institutional
capital flow coming in. Then you look at the recent
news of what happened here to coinbase, and this starts
to get a little bit closer to home because I know,
this is an AWS outage. That's like comparing a you know,
Godzilla to a lizard, you know, when you're talking about

(24:59):
Zalana versus. But the point being is that it brings
it into the mindset of an institutional investor says, wait
a minute, AWS is going out and Solana is holding
up over here. Can this Can this be a future
for this? So it's intriguing around this. So this might
be the way that Solana gets an edge. If they
in fact do get an edge, we'll see absolutely.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
You know, Solana is one of the central projects in
the industry, frankly, and it stands out really on the
basis of something that every investor can understand.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Was it's just the fundamentals.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
You know, Solana has an on chain leader in terms
of users, transactions, fee, revenue, and that's both the underlying
blockchain itself or the layer one and all the applications
that are built on top of it. So you know,
we call Solana crypto's financial bizarre, you know, like a
bizarre in the real world. There's a lot going on,

(25:54):
a lot of people, a lot of commerce happening, and
all that is a foundation for the token valuation over time.
So I do think it has a very strong fundamental foundation.
And as exactly as you say, Paul, as an institutional
investors are approaching these topics, they do come with sharp pencils.
They look very closely at all this, at the foundation,

(26:15):
at the underlying fundamentals, at the underlying data. And I
think Solana screens very well in that sense. And you know,
these ETP products, as soon as they're available to the investor,
will be popular for that reason, just because it stands
out very well on the basis of on chain fundamentals.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, all right, So I have to ask you this question,
and this is is how does this market flow into
the next few months. Many people are looking at this
pump that we're in right now, Bitcoin back above one
to eleven I think as we're recording this one hundred
and eleven K. So you look at what has happened
over the last couple.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Of weeks huge liquidity events.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Many people now challenging whether or not liquidity is still
in crypto. Many people looking at crypto now, is the
just a slight pump before an exit or is this
setting up for some stellar run around this?

Speaker 3 (27:07):
What is your.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Opinion on this?

Speaker 1 (27:09):
I know not financial advice, We're not talking about a
price prediction here, but just in general, are you still
bullish on where crypto is right now into these next
few quarters?

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Well, let me put it this way.

Speaker 4 (27:21):
I am very bullish on crypto's fundamentals and think the
trends are pointing in the right direction. Now Crypto is
increasingly a grown up asset class, you know, It's not
something that's independent of everything else that's happening in finance,
and so whether we have a real strong run into
the end of the year is partly a call on
these macro things government shutdown, tariff conflict, credit issues, and

(27:45):
private credit markets, and so my judgment would be those
do cut in a positive direction. I am optimistic on
those things, and I think we will climb the wall
of worry into the end of the year. But I'm
very comfortable with where the crypto asset class is, and
I'm making a judgment on some of those macro factors.

(28:06):
I think they will cut in a positive direction. Put
those two things together optimistic into the end of the year.
But I just like to encourage people to remember that
it's not just about all the great things that are
happening in our asset class that we've talked about, regulatory change,
etf approvals, etc. It's also these macro factors that will
determine how we end up come D thirty one.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
No doubt.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Listen, if you guys have been watching our channel very long,
you know our inflection point a few years ago started
really focusing in on the macro angle because we felt
like it was going to be the critical component to
really kind of step this crypto market into the twelfth sector.
And I think that's where we are now. How this
plays out in the continuation of it is going to

(28:50):
get interesting, because I mean, it's not that I'm saying
that the meme seasons are done or all coin seasons out,
but I think you're going to see these massive winners,
you know, in these big sectors, and it's going to
be interesting do they carry along the rest of the market.
That's the real question everybody's asking. So thanks Zach for
coming in today.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
We appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
My pleasure, Paul as always, thank you.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
You bet all right, you guys, you know what to do.
Join the Diamond Circle. It's our own private group that
you can be a part of it. It's absolutely free.
We always leave a link down below and all you
have to do is click that jump in simple and
then of course check me out there on x at
Paul Baron. You can also catch me on TikTok too
Official Paul Baron. So we'll see you soon right here
on The Paul Baron Show.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie

Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club

The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.