Incorporating Digital Assets into Diversified Portfolios | EBC12

We are missing a moderator. Okay, I'll sit down and just say what every moderator says every time. And let's pretend you have to pretend I'm a former member of the European Parliament. And that's why it's great that you're all here. Thank you very much for coming.

It's great to be here at EBC. My name is, of course, not André Kovarik, I am a former member of the European Parliament, but I will pretend that I am, and I invite you all, according to a long-standing tradition, to introduce ourselves to our wonderful guests. And we'll just get straight to the point. That means we'll start with you, Robert. So what's your short speech?

Or just tell our wonderful delegate a little about delegate a little about who you are and what you do. Thank you. Favorite color, something like that. Favorite color, favorite cookie, and what do you like: Blur or Oasis? Good.

Franklin Templeton, a traditional asset manager, but we also use a validator. No, we are very traditional asset managers. We are very unconventional asset managers and have been managing blockchain-powered funds for almost half a decade. Perfectly. Okay, what about your favorite cookie?

It should be Hobnob. Oh, strong answer. Okay, fantastic. Thank you very much, Robert. Okay, on to your good self, Ramsey.

So, hello, ladies and gentlemen. Um, this is Ramsey. I work for a traditional bank called Natixis. Um, I'm responsible for fintech and digital asset coverage. That is, I develop a business with key players in the ecosystem.

Um, and we've been quite, let's say, active in the blockchain space for over 10 years. And today we see a clear acceleration, but we'll talk more about that in the coming minutes. Perfectly. Perfectly. Thank you.

I pass it on to your kind "I", Eva. So, I am Eve. So, I was sitting here when it was n't Andriy who came up to me and said how to pronounce your name. And I had the usual dilemma: either pronounce my name correctly, and he would forget how to do it in 5 minutes. Or, you know, I invented the trick a couple of years, 10 years, 15 years ago.

And on my LinkedIn account, you can now check how your name is pronounced . So I'll do this for you so you don't forget how to pronounce my name again pronounce my name again . Feel free to pronounce my name however you want. It's probably more love than the fact that I'm the founder of Tobam. Tobam stands for " stands for " Think Out of the Box Asset Management" Think Out of the Box Asset Management" .

Uh, and Tobam's job is to try to market exposures that haven't yet been exposed by the BlackRocks and Franklin Templetons of this world. So, in 2016, we launched the world's first open-end fund invested in Bitcoin. And we keep trying to imagine what they'll do in 6, 7, or 10 years to be the first to bring it to market. Greetings. I am Michal Niederle.

When we talk about pronouncing surnames correctly, I know it's complicated. I'm an investor, and today I'm here to represent Invity, one of the companies in my portfolio. Invity belongs to Trezor, a group called Satoshi Labs. Trezor is my co-partner. And what we are doing is creating a neobank on Bitcoin.

So, all financial transactions and needs are connected to Bitcoin, and security and sovereignty are key in our company. I'm Richard Hodges. I am an investment manager, head of systematic trading and digital assets at Khan Investment Management. I am also the founder of Pharaoh Capital, and Pharaoh Capital actually advises Khan. I have been trading volatility for 30 years in the forex market, and more recently in cryptocurrencies, mostly Bitcoin.

Hmm, and if you've seen my talk before, you know that I have conflicting views on global finance and macroeconomics. So far I haven't been wrong. So I haven't been wrong. So hopefully this year we can offer more thoughts. Thanks everyone, my name is Andre Kovacs and I'm late.

Sorry about that. There were some errors in the calendar, but I was supposed to be the moderator, but we've heard introductions from our esteemed panelists, and I think now is a good time to hear, as Richard said, your thoughts on today's inclusion of digital assets in diversified portfolios. So let me start with you, Robert, from your perspective. As an institutional investor, do institutional investors truly understand the potential of digital assets and do they have the internal mechanisms to fully access them? How, for example, do ETFs help them with this?

First of all, welcome to the panel, Andre. Thank you very much and I apologize again for this apologize again for this . Sorry, that was a cheap trick. Hmm, in my job, I've been speaking for the last 10 years, I've spoken to probably 50-60 trillion dollars of, um, leadership both investors and um, managers. And I think the answer to your question, Andre, um, is increasingly yes, but it happens in three very different, important different ways.

Hmm different ways. Hmm , if you think about it, the task of any of us as investors is simply to allocate capital. So the first dimension of my answer of "yes" is that there is a growing awareness of the form, excuse me, the scale and scope of capital creation outside of the traditional capital structure. So stocks and bonds, everything outside of stocks and bonds, that is, everything in the chain, is inaccessible to traditional managers who just use accounts and use, um, stocks. Hmm, but recognizing that, to the other part of your question, recognizing that is very different from being able to actually take advantage of it.

So, the mechanism refers to both the intellectual and the physical, um, mechanism, because investing, as everyone here and everyone in the audience knows, means you can't do brain surgery on the weekend. This is fundamentally different, and it is different in some very important ways. Investing, and you must be able to combine knowledge of risk management, portfolio construction with deep knowledge of technology to do it. At the same time, this does not exist in active management, it does not exist in a vacuum. So, portfolios need high-quality beta high-quality beta momentum as a building block, and that's where ETFs come in , and that's where multi-coin ETFs come in.

Number two, perhaps even more important than number one, another answer to this question is the role of blockchains in the growth of capital in the traditional economy as agents, such as artificial intelligence agents, continue their march. We won't talk about D2C and B2C; It's going to be A to B, B to A, A to C, D to C. And you may have heard my boss, Sandy Call boss, Sandy Call , talk about how AI will drive blockchain adoption through real-time micropayments between agents, between, um, the need for data governance and the provenance of the data that's used to train agents, um, and used for personalization. And then, number three, um, that's actually another part of the opportunity that institutions are definitely realizing is the efficiency with which we, um, we manage money. What I mean by this is that if you have a tokenized money market fund that pays interest by the second, it allows you to leverage a lot more of your client's capital, whether you're a treasurer or, ahem, an investor.

So zero cash burden is a real advantage of using technology to give us more ways to get more capital to invest. So it is , but for three very different reasons. Thank you. Thank you for that. Um, maybe addressing you, Ramsey, from, I think, a similar but slightly different perspective.

You work in a corporate and investment bank investment bank . What can you actually offer a customer today in this regard? And how do private banks cope with the demands for direct yield? Is there any risk of recurrence that would limit you in this regard? What would you comment on this?

So, today's conversations are more specific. We see real demand. So this is not the key issue this is not the key issue . And our clients can typically access crypto exposure through various types of wrappers. They may use regulated investments, derivatives or structured products.

So this is what we can offer today to clients who have that appetite for crypto appetite for crypto exposure. But we have to remember that of course the client wants course the client wants clients to manage their crypto exposures without having to handle them. They don't want to handle a lot of cryptocurrencies and the associated risks. So, let's just say , the easiest way for us to distribute and offer crypto offer crypto exposure is to use indirect solutions. For example, we have Bitcoin treasury stocks, blockchain stocks, ETFs, and of course, pure blockchain stocks.

And also, of course, the Bitcoin ETF. You know, mostly IBIT. But we need to be a little more careful. Of course, reputation Of course, reputation is the key word. And banking banking is a highly regulated sector, like aviation, pharmaceuticals, etc.

So of course we need to worry about capital handling. About how we distribute it, because we fall under some specific requirements that are different from those of pure crypto those of pure crypto players. And, uh, we also need to think about the best, of course, way to move forward without affecting our credibility. Because, you know, well- established banking players, uh banking players, uh , should be able to maintain their image. And cryptocurrency is an asset that we're a little more worried about than maybe the more complex ones that we already deal with, uh, in traditional finance.

Thank you, uh, thank you for that . Uh, I'll now move on to Michal, because, uh, your company is actually on the retail end, retail end, uh. So, uh, what's your perspective on this issue from your company's perspective, and maybe if you could demonstrate, uh demonstrate, uh , a project that you're currently launching in Spain to give us, uh, a little more detail. Well, thanks for the opportunity for a little advertising. Uh, my opinion, uh, from a retail perspective , uh, don't forget that we represent a company called Trezor, uh, whose main claim is, uh, not your keys, not your coins.

So what we're pushing, what we're pushing, we'd actually like to see customers moving their bitcoins, mainly in our case, uh, into self- storage. So, uh, on the other hand, the implementation is very small. Uh, just a few numbers, uh, Trezor has sold, uh, 3 million devices worldwide. 1 million in Europe, 3 million in the United States. If you compare this to the population, it's a tiny fraction.

Er it's a tiny fraction. Er , so it's obvious that people really don't care . They don't understand technology very well, so they prefer to keep their assets with a custodian, like in the traditional financial world. And, um, um, then the question arises, who is actually, um, you know, doing the wrapping, the staking, etc., because, um, um, I always worry about cases like Genesis and, you know, Bitfire, or what were the, um, other crashes that we could see.

Um, and, um, because these people obviously didn't understand self- custody, they trusted the custodian, and trusted the custodian, and , um, the circus that went on behind that, that they were actually, um, wrapping up someone else's assets, um, caused the crashes. So I'm making, um, everyone learn self- storage. One example, and I'll be very brief. Um, you probably know that the Czech National Bank purchased the first test, um, portfolio, earlier this year for 1 million euros. Uh, they actually bought about seven Bitcoins, some Solana, Ethereum, some MicroStrategy, etc.

And last week, uh, they invited us to, uh they invited us to, uh , give a seminar at the Czech National Bank about how they should approach storage. Uh, such a huge institution huge institution , and they're racking their brains over it just like the rest of us. Uh, but obviously this will lead to self- storage. So I can imagine they would use, for example, BitGo as a provider and some multi-signature solutions. And so what I see, and the last question on Spain, we just see the sales volume in Trezor, that actually Germany, Poland and Spain are the biggest markets in Europe.

So that's what we're watching. So we're opening Poland next month, and we'll be in Germany tomorrow. Interesting, interesting. So good luck with your launch, but also thank you for mentioning the Czech Central Bank test portfolio. So they actually bought seven bitcoins because they have seven members on the bank board.

So each of them has one. Richard, maybe from a more general perspective, but previous speakers have mentioned focus many times. So, the role of Bitcoin in the broader digital asset landscape. So how do you see Bitcoin's role as a kind of counterbalance and source of liquidity for the global transfer of wealth? And are there any risks?

For example, we discussed this ETF concentration. Do you see any risks from this perspective? Yes. Emm. So my opinion on Bitcoin in particular is that it actually has value because it is an immutable store of some value.

Just if you talk a little closer. Sorry, yes. So my opinion on Bitcoin is that there is some intrinsic value in Bitcoin, uh intrinsic value in Bitcoin, uh , because of its limited supply, uh, and uh, the ease of transferring between wallets for anyone in the know, it's a very easy way to move money. And there is great value in this in times of war in times of war , conflict, and economic uncertainty, which we are currently seeing in the Middle East. Hmm, that's unlike almost every other cryptocurrency, which I view as buying a hand grenade or a hand grenade with a pin pulled out.

That doesn't mean there's no value in it. There is value in all of this . Hmm, so, uh . Hmm, so, uh , last, uh, 2 years ago I made 6000% by buying altcoins at a discount and then immediately selling them at market prices and then, uh, moving on. And then, and then I started borrowing them, selling them, and then buying them back as they grew.

There is enormous value in this. Hmm, you can pick up this whole range of reduction. Bitcoin has the potential for a gamma rise because, like anything with a limited supply that you can't do quickly, if there's a sudden rush for it, you'll get a huge spike in price. That's just how markets work. So there is intrinsic value in owning Bitcoin or trading Bitcoin because you never know when this massive gamma surge is going to happen.

This makes it a very interesting asset to hold and trade. My general opinion about cryptocurrencies is that they are like any other asset. Most publicly traded stocks are pyramid schemes run by charlatans and will crash to zero. Some of them will fly to the Moon. The same applies to cryptocurrency.

And the real value for me, as a volatility trader, is in the volatility itself. So, for me, the biggest value of having cryptocurrency in your portfolio, and why you should do it, is that you benefit from it, if you know how to benefit from that volatility, that volatility is actually worth more than the asset itself. This is my position on these things. Thank you, thank you for that. I am simply adding to the picture and reviewing different positions and opinions.

Now I'm thinking of moving to Eve Think - moving to Eve Think - unconventional asset management, which I think I really like under that name. But, um, you said that our job is not really to convince investors to own Bitcoin anymore. So maybe we can also continue what Richard and the previous speakers said previous speakers said . What has changed and what is our real task now? Good.

Let me tell you a short story. Actually, it's not that short. It is 70,000 years old. This is the history of the oil industry. The oldest evidence we have of human use of oil dates back to 70,000 BC in Syria.

And oil was used as glue. It was asphalt, actually. Then we used oil for lighting. Then we used oil for waterproofing. Then we used oil to wage war.

And these five things that we used to get oil are 65,000 years old. And for 65,000 years, we haven't done anything else with oil other than these four things. By the mid-19th century, two chemists, a U.S. citizen and a Canadian citizen, had invented fractional refining.

Fractional distillation . They took crude oil, evaporated it, and realized that at about 560° you could get asphalt. At lower temperatures—off. Then gasoline, and then gas. And they created the oil industry in the mid-19th century.

And everything around us is now a byproduct of crude oil production. The same thing happens with Bitcoin. You can still buy Bitcoin today. And have a nightmare of having the keys, being kidnapped, trusting the golden keys, or something else. Or you can trust the industry.

And the industry will no longer convince you to buy Bitcoin. They will convince you that there is no question you can ask about Bitcoin, no objection to Bitcoin that will go unanswered. The first objection we had, when, you know we had, when, you know , my clients are institutions, they told us that Bitcoin is not even a security. So we dealt with it . We created funds that were a security that held bitcoins themselves.

Some people told us that Bitcoin is not a stock. We only invest in stocks. A guy from the US named Michael Saylor, you know, deployed MicroStrategy. I last met Michael Saylor 3 months ago in Prague. There were four of us in the room, and I said to him, "Michael, you remind me of Christopher Columbus."

He said to me: " Why?" I told him, “You know, Christopher Columbus was just trying to find a better route to India, and you know what? He discovered America." And Michael Saylor simply wanted to create some kind of Bitcoin ETF. And he invented a Bitcoin processing plant.

If you want to buy stocks, convertible bonds, perpetual bonds, whatever, that's what the industry is doing right now. We try not to leave any objections unanswered. You can buy Bitcoin byproducts even if you can't buy Bitcoins themselves. And that's what I think we'll be doing in the next 10 or 15 years. Thank you.

And I also know that you have a great picture of what we would like to show, but unfortunately it is not possible. But this, I think, would be a very good example and demonstration of what you just mentioned. Start the second round, also feel free to respond to what was said by the other panelists, but I think also based on what we just heard from Eva, addressing you, Ramsey. Well, obviously there is a fairly wide range of different digital assets. Some of them will be very simple, some will be very, very complex.

So is there anything that, as a private bank, actually encourages or stops you from participating in buying or acquiring some of these assets some of these assets ? Is it customer demand or a capital approach? You also discussed reputation. What would actually have to change for you, for example, to open yourself up to all the options that are currently on the table? So, today there is demand.

So we have no problems when it comes to customer requests. Let's say what's blocking you, blocking us today, is more regulation and clarity on capital rules. Uh, because as you may know as you may know , as a bank, if you own cryptocurrency, you are subject to a 1250% capital gain tax, which effectively destroys your business. And that's why I mentioned indirect risk at the beginning of this discussion, because since we can't store cryptocurrencies and trade physical cryptocurrencies on behalf of our clients, we promote these alternative solutions. So once we have more clarity with these prudential rules, we will be able to scale and offer what we already do with traditional assets in cryptocurrency.

But let's say that today we have confidence in choosing the right partner because we already deal with crypto clients from a banking perspective. So we know how to assess risk, their profile, and we have well-established relationships with key players today in the ecosystems, where they are custodians, exchanges, market exchanges, market makers, and some others. But the risks are somewhat different. When you are a bank, you find yourself working in a new environment because you have to deal with security. You need to protect your assets.

Today, when you manage traditional banking, you don't really have to worry about the accounts themselves because if you make a wrong transfer, you can reverse it. You know, although you can reconcile assets, even though blockchain offers better opportunities, when it comes to cryptocurrencies, you definitely face higher risk. And you are also subject to various, let's say, restrictions from regulators. Despite what we see with MiCA, banks are subject to a multitude of regulations. So even if tomorrow we can directly distribute cryptocurrencies, that is, cryptocurrencies to institutional institutions, known clients, we need to be very careful about how we distribute them, how we store them, and how predictable they are, because we need to manage stress scenarios.

And that's what we're already doing on our balance sheet. We are subject to many reports, capital requirements, ratios, and it is important to keep this in mind important to keep this in mind . And to add a final word, I'm talking more about the institutional business institutional business , because when it comes to the retail business, it's a little easier since you're just doing a simple brokerage business. So you don't hold that much cryptocurrency on your balance. Therefore, the main challenge for banks today is to address the institutional part.

Well , thank you, sir. Thank you for raising this issue. I think that's understandable. Perhaps understandable. Perhaps some comments from you, Robert, on this .

We heard from Ramsey that, uh, the prudential system, and I can always subscribe to that as a former legislator. I am also partly responsible for some of this. So, sorry. Sorry, guys. But, uh, the prudential system actually considers risk, uh, but it's extremely risk-averse, I would say.

But from a portfolio perspective, is the overall risk really different from the traditional 60/40? Uh, and traditional 60/40? Uh, and , um, from that perspective, what does the allocator actually have to ask, what are the digital assets actually doing inside the portfolio for regulators to view them in this way? Um, I think that's really the crux of the matter, because it's really fun and interesting to talk about an individual asset, and if you have the skills like Richard has to get the range out of it , you can trade; you can trade and make money this way. But in the long run, all the academic research shows, and everyone's personal experience shows, that this is a really boring long-term asset allocation.

There's good asset allocation and there's bad, but I think the key, the kind of core to this, Andre, is how we incorporate digital assets, and particularly the impact of bitcoin, into our existing structures, risk management structures, and particularly how we incorporate it into our benchmarks. Now, from a risk perspective, and I won't go into that here, but if anyone is interested, we wrote a great article on the subject. Thinking about what you want the about what you want the most risk in your portfolio to be relative to the individual risk in your portfolio, how you think about allocating beta allocating beta exposures to alpha exposures to alpha exposures or between different types of high-risk alpha exposures, it's almost like in the institutional world institutional world : a portfolio of policies or a benchmark portfolio benchmark portfolio , how large sovereign wealth funds allocate risk across different asset types within the overall portfolio, the overall portfolio structure. So, yes, an asset has different characteristics different characteristics that we need to understand. But if we don't actually find a way to incorporate this into our existing thinking, then we're just going to be on a roller coaster coaster , and we, as an industry, won't appeal to customers, and investors won't be able to get long-term value out of it.

Again , unless you can trade this and just walk around Vegas like Richard. Oh, thank you, thank you for expressing your opinion on this matter. We're just reaching out to you, Michael, about what you were talking about, because I think it's kind of a continuation of the example you gave. Well, you said that people don't really have to understand technology, and I think maybe there's a shift happening early on, most traders actually understand technology very well . Not that they don't need to, but is there a line between eliminating that friction and eliminating the need for understanding?

And if they don't need to understand technology, do they perhaps need to understand something else, say, in the way financial instruments are traded, as well as these more complex digital assets? Is there any shift in this regard? No. Yes. Well, uh, I always see evolution, and today in this discussion, let's describe the evolution of Bitcoiner.

So, when you don't understand Bitcoin, you buy an ETF. When you understand Bitcoin, you buy it, say buy it, say , on some stock exchange, etc. When you understand Bitcoin better, you are taking care of yourself. And when you understand the financial system, you buy Bitcoin without KYC. Yes, that is the ultimate goal.

But in terms of volume, it's quite the opposite. So, the masses are actually buying ETFs. We can see it like these two major ETFs. Um, I'm betting, and um, Michael, um betting, and um, Michael, um , Sailor, actually, the product. Um, and only bankers, um, like the people in black hoodies, buy non- Bitcoin ETFs.

So, there is a discrepancy between knowledge and, um, mass acceptance. Um, I personally always think that um, we need to be easy access for customers who already understand Bitcoin, but they don't need to understand um, self- custody and um, multi- signature solutions. So I'm trying to get to, um get to, um , let's say, the second level of evolution that I just described. Um, thank you. I think creating a review like this is actually useful.

Um, then I'm turning to you, Richard. Well, I think you're making your point clearly about the position of Bitcoin, er, and digital assets, etc. Do you have any comments on what we are discussing now in terms of the need to understand technology understand technology , to understand self-control, to understand the key principle of financial products or trading? How would you actually see it from the perspective you mentioned in your opening remarks? Yes, there are a few points I can point out.

So, one of them is the number of synthetic Bitcoin products that we have, such as the I bet ETF. And in fact, this is very important to us. We at Connor are going to launch a UCITS fund to make Bitcoin volatility trading mass, retail if you will. And of course, one of the rules of UCITS funds is that you have to invest in, uh, regulated assets. So, we can't invest in Bitcoin, and we definitely can't invest in Bitcoin options in a UCITS fund.

But I can invest in stocks, I bet, and ether stocks, and I can trade options on them, which is strange, isn't it? So, I can...I can't trade dog [ __ ], but I can trade dog [ __ ] wrapped in cat [ __ ], right? This is allowed. Um, you see, you need to use a big short, e- big short, e- narrative.

Um, yeah, and as a result, um, all the institutions want me to trade, um, I bet on them instead of Bitcoin because it's just easier. You don't need to convince. You don't have to put your career on the line to convince an investment committee to risk the reputation of the entire firm for one fragile, er, encryption key that someone could steal, right? Or copy. Um, which brings us to the topic of self- storage.

So, you know, the wisdom is that the more you understand Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general cryptocurrencies in general , the more you insist on self- custody, which means you keep the key to your wallet in your own mind, a safe, or in some encrypted form. The only step that Michael didn't get to is that if you hold, say, over $100,000 in, uh over $100,000 in, uh , digital assets, and someone knows about it, they'll start harassing and torturing you until you give up your key. So really, if you really know Bitcoin, you don't hold it in any amount. You hold enough to be able to make small transactions. It's like carrying gold coins around with you, right ?

You keep about 10 to stay out of trouble, but you don't make yourself a target. Uh, and actually, uh, all my bitcoins are sitting on exchanges because I don't trust any of them and I know this whole thing is going to blow up and it's just easier not to be tortured in the meantime. Eh, that's my opinion. Uh, but in the meantime, the volatility is high, and I can convert it into lifestyle, money, land. Yes, no, thank you.

Um, I think, well, let's hope that, uh, we don't get tortured, uh, in the possible future, but I think it makes sense. Um, if, uh, we heard after your intervention, uh, I think there are a few points that also relate to your remarks. I mean the prudential system, uh, the need to understand the technology understand the technology , uh, the path to it, the need to also understand how Bitcoin works. So, let's say the price of Bitcoin increased by $20,000 in an hour. Um, as an asset manager, you mentioned that your clients will be mostly institutional.

What happened? And how does an asset allocator actually respond to this? Good. So, actually, you're right. Three weeks ago, in a couple of hours, in two or three hours, Bitcoin went up by about $15,000.

And that's quite exciting for a lot of people. Uh, you know, in June 2026, I met with Michael Saylor and was also a speaker, a co-panelist at the annual CFA conference in the UK, along with the global CIO of equities at BlackRock. And we discuss how institutions allocate assets in the market today. And we agree on one thing: more and more institutions are passive. What is the most important role of active managers?

Price determination. So , if all the long-term investors, like all the very experienced long-term investors like the Calpers of this world, become passive, then who is in charge of setting the price? We are left with mostly hedge funds and US retail. These are the ones who today, I think, yes, but BlackRock agrees with me. They are the ones who determine the price today.

OK? Have you met a hedge hedge fund manager? Yes, already. They met in the past. Some people have never met a hedge hedge fund manager and imagine hedge hedge fund managers as some kind of mythical creature.

You know, something between dragons and unicorns. In fact, this is completely wrong. Um, hedge hedge fund managers look like teenagers with very strong legs. On the one hand, they have budgets. On the other hand, they have a chair.

And they are in the field, and they are running after the cows. They try to catch a cow, milk it, and as soon as they finish milking the cow, they run to the next cow. That's what they did with gold, with silver on the way up, on the way down, with chipmakers, with hyperscalers. And at that moment they will realize that there is a very, very fat cow in the field that has not been milked for some time. And that's how it will happen, and that's how it always has happened with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin doesn't grow like that. It grows like this. And slowly retail starts in the US, and it starts, you know, a crazy surge, until the hedge surge, until the hedge fund says, we're too melted down. We need to go out again. Just like they did it with silver did it with silver .

They raised the price of silver. When it grew too big, they lowered it. This is not some conspiracy theory at all. It's about efficiency. It's about determining the price.

There is iteration on one side, and iteration on the other. It's really something completely technical, where the number of players is not very large, and the players themselves are extremely large. Thank you. Thank you for your opinion. Well, thank you.

Thank you all. We, in principle, I think we could discuss this for hours, but we only have a few minutes before the end of the panel. So, I think I'll just give you all a minute to, um, either comment on something you heard on the panel (whether you heard on the panel (whether you agree or disagree) or offer an opinion that you think would be a good takeaway for the audience on this particular question from the panel. And I think we can just stick to the order. So, Robert, uh, you can start.

Of course. Just a small note about the references to previous panels where money was discussed money was discussed . I think that since Bitcoin is arguably a form of money, as forms of money proliferate, we will have to store our money in the safest, most profitable form, and then convert it into whatever form of money is needed to make a transaction. I think there are two parts to this whole thing. There is a cash half, collateral, etc.

, and an investment half. These two things, their relationship, are very important. Thank you, Ramsey. So, continuing Eva's point, you know, when there's a bull run, that's when clients come knocking on the door and want to get cryptocurrency exposure exposure . So, as everyone awaits a bullish rally, hoping it will come soon, we certainly need to all work together to find the best way to gain cryptocurrency exposure exposure , whether it's through derivatives, financing, or some other solution.

Thank you, Eva. I truly believe that the history of the coming years is a basement. You know, in the 15th century, the world's currency was silver. It wasn't gold. Uh, and then, uh gold.

Uh, and then, uh , the Spanish discovered some silver mines in South America, mostly, uh, in Colombia, I think, and then in Brazil. And they brought silver to Europe, and silver began to lose value. And then, in 1694, a small group of businessmen met in London and decided to create a new business. The new business would be to raise capital to buy gold. Do you know what they called their business?

They called their business the Bank of England. In 1800, Napoleon organized a meeting in a building in Paris called the Palais Royal among the 100 richest families in France. And he told them: “You will like the English. You will create a corporation that will raise capital to buy gold, and you will call this company the Bank of France. And these two companies became, uh two companies became, uh , the most successful companies in the world until they were unfortunately nationalized, uh, in 1945 and 1946, thanks to the wonderful work of Keynes.

OK? I think, uh, we... Look at Japan. How can one better describe Japan in one word than " than " devaluation"? You know, when I was much younger, some thought it was about 70 years ago, we used to quote about the escape to quality.

Uh, we used to, when volatility was high, when danger and risk loomed, we would sell stocks, uh, and buy government bonds and cash. Today, the opposite is happening in Japan . This is not an escape from quality, it is an escape from money. You would buy anything to get rid of that wrong piece...What do you call it?

Uh, to get rid of this thing that converges to zero that converges to zero . "Thank you, Michael." Uh , my turn. Uh, I would say, uh, don't trust it, check it out. I would also like to remind you, Richard, of what happened when Revolut was hacked last week.

Yes? Some clerk at the French National Bank sold a list of cryptocurrency owners. Uh, a bank in the Czech Republic was also hacked about 2 weeks ago. We at Trezor see this every day, uh, attacks happening. So in the world of artificial intelligence, the question is not when, or if, but when it happens to some custodian.

And lastly custodian. And lastly , when I was at a seminar at the Czech National Bank, they said, “Well, actually this Bitcoin is a different asset, because if someone steals your asset, no one can print it again. But in a traditional bank, when someone steals your money, you don't know about it . "They just send the money again." “This is exactly what the head of the National Banker of the Czech Republic said about the system.

So Bitcoin deposits are not insured like a 100,000 euro deposit in a bank. So there is a big difference between Bitcoin and fiat currency deposits . So keep that in mind. Really. Final word, Richard.

Yes. Hmm, so we move on to geopolitics. Hmm, every geometric prediction of the price of Bitcoin or Bitcoin or any asset, gold, cows, etc., actually depends on an axiom, a premise, which is that the US dollar remains the hegemonic currency of the world. Hmm, and the petrodollar system will exist until the end of time.

Hmm, a year ago at this event I said, this event I said, "It doesn't seem like it's going to happen right away, but people are starting to believe that maybe the dollar won't be hegemonic forever." “Well, this year I can tell you that we are on death row because of the petrodollar. Um, it's more than likely that Yemeni rebels in sandals in the desert will take over Saudi Arabia. Um Saudi Arabia. Um , and this puts all the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council at risk .

Iran recently sent a text message to its compatriots asking them to enlist in the army. They wanted a million people to sign up. They received 35.5 million responses asking to join the army. So obviously there are some very motivated, so in total 75 million people are motivated to gain their freedom and preserve their existence, and they are facing, essentially, the interests, well, the obvious interests of the dollar hegemony.

In my opinion, the US will sit back and let the Middle East fall apart. I think US politicians see that this is in their interest, and in the world that I suspect we will see in the next 2-3 years, and I'm sorry to say this, the situation will become unstable. There is no guarantee that we will get a geometric increase in the... the number of dollars in the world. We will get a geometric increase in volatility, and so volatility, and so in my opinion, Bitcoin is part of that future for that reason.

And I understand your point about storage. Perfectly. Thank you very much for that and thank all the esteemed panelists for your comments, and please applaud them for that. Thank you very much.