I think it's probably best to start with a brief description of myself, because I think that would be appropriate. So, I studied engineering at MIT and spent the first five years of my career as a software engineer throughout Asia and the United States. And then, um Asia and the United States. And then, um , "crossber tech" literally meant going through customs for a hardware, um, server workstation, which I had to do to demonstrate the product to SK Telecom. But then I went to business school, moving into the world of investment and institutional capital management, ahem, focused on technology and emerging markets.
And I often ask myself when I look at, um, a technology company, the first thing is, um, does this technology work? And relatively speaking, that question was easier to answer because the second question was: does it make money does it make money ? Does this company make money? And often this question was much more difficult to answer more difficult to answer , because you have to analyze the context of this technology and competing technologies, the industry, the competitive response of other players, hmm, the regulatory environment, hmm, geopolitics, etc. But if the answers to both questions were yes, then you'll have a winning formula for several years of outperformance, uh years of outperformance, uh , from there.
And I'm going to explain why, uh, Ethereum's answer to both questions is yes. Uh, everyone, uh, knows very well that the price of ETH has been in this, uh, consolidation pattern of negative momentum for four to five years. Uh, the price has dropped a bit, but even then it's within that range. Uh, we used to have a saying that the longer the reel, the more explosive the breakouts would be. And, uh, hopefully we'll talk about why the breakthroughs will be at their peak.
So, one reason would be that the war with Iran is ending, and the Trump administration can't afford a prolonged war and wants a fairly quick, uh, exit quick, uh, exit . And, obviously, uh, you know, the price of oil is going up because of, uh, supply constraints supply constraints . And if oil prices, uh, turn around, uh, Ethereum will have a big tailwind, because right now we're seeing the highest inverse correlation ever . And obviously, rising oil prices, uh, affect our core CPI, and rising CPI, interest rates, uh, can go up and have negative consequences for all asset prices. And the second, uh, the Clarity Act, uh, this is a major event, and you guys probably know the details, but I want to point out that a lot of businesses are staying out of the way are staying out of the way , uh, looking to add something after the CL Clarity Act was passed.
But not only businesses, but also many countries are turning to the United States for political leadership. As a manager of an emerging fund , uh, for over 20 years, uh, I've seen many countries, especially when they lack expertise in certain areas, look to the United States for political leadership. But the Clarity Act, uh Clarity Act, uh , according to polymarkets, has about a 56% chance, uh, and I think it's actually a little lower today. But when you talk to people in Washington, it really seems, uh, down in terms of , uh, probability , uh, probability , and obviously the big banks don't want that to happen. Uh, but big banks don't develop policies develop policies .
Our politicians are developed, and politicians are elected by the people. A lot of people, uh people. A lot of people, uh , want it to be accepted. Another point is point is that the current administration is, uh, friendly to cryptocurrencies, and cryptocurrency is, uh, positively influencing US dollar policy. Just imagine you're in Argentina, and you've just spent the last 10 years experiencing inflation of 74% per year for 10 years, and you've seen your, uh, bank deposits in your currency decrease by 99%, uh, the volume of US dollars, or you're in Turkey, and you've seen the same thing, uh, your bank deposits decrease by 94%.
And you all know, uh, US dollar stablecoins, uh, are mostly owned outside the US, and you can imagine why that is. But if this continues, the central banks of these countries will face a dilemma, because in the international financial sphere there is a theory called the impossible trinity. Um, basically, you can't achieve all three of these goals. So, the first one is the free flow of capital, money, coming in and going out of your country. The second is a your country.
The second is a fixed exchange rate, a very stable currency, an independent monetary policy, and the ability to actually raise or lower interest rates. And you can only do two out of three. And the US, of course three. And the US, of course , has a floating fixed exchange rate, but has complete control over the other two. So if you see a massive outflow of your own currency, you have to do two things.
First, either you ban it either you ban it , as we have seen in other countries like Egypt banning cryptocurrency activities, or you rush to launch your own stablecoins, which is what many countries are preparing to do. And what does that mean? This means we will see a lot more activity in blockchain blockchain cryptocurrencies launching around the world, and from a US perspective, the US dominance of the US dollar in the fiat world will extend to the digital world, perhaps even more. Fourth, we have a new expert, this is Kevin Walsh, and he's also, uh, about also, uh, about cryptocurrency. And finally, our demographic situation here in the United States is, uh situation here in the United States is, uh , positive in the long term.
The top graph shows the number of Americans aged 30-40 and how this correlates with the US stock market and risky assets. So if you can, you can conclude that there is still a lot of potential for growth from here. So, this is just a current picture of what's happening, uh, in the ETH market. And let's talk about the future of money and the future, uh, fundamentals, because Elon Musk famously said it's, uh, mass and energy, computing and energy, and we think Ethereum is the best implementation of that future. So, there are several factors that affect the demand for ETH in the future.
So ETH in the future. So , one clear area , one clear area is ancient AI and robots. Everyone points to the GPT moment as the moment for AI, but, uh moment for AI, but, uh , it's not. I won't mention myself today, but when I was in college at MIT , uh, in the '90s, uh , we had a building called the Artificial Intelligence Lab. And this artificial intelligence lab wasn't, uh intelligence lab wasn't, uh , founded in the 90s.
It was not founded in the was not founded in the 80s. It was founded in 1970. And if you go back even further, uh, uh, Marvin Minsky started this artificial intelligence project, uh, in 1959. So we've had over half a decade over half a decade , uh, half a century or more of development that more of development that , uh, has been going on at a steady pace. But when all the, uh, breakthrough technologies converge at one point and open AI like chachi emerges, and from there we see the development and progress like a hockey stick.
So, AI is getting better and better, smarter. AI interacts with interacts with websites. Uh, robots are getting smarter and, uh, they're being deployed more widely. I do n't know if you've heard of the Dark Factory in China from a company called Xiaomi. It is known for operating 24/7 in the dark, as robots operate it with minimal, er, human supervision.
Um human supervision. Um , and they claim they can produce one, uh, smartphone per second, and also, uh, AI is getting smarter and superhuman. And if you haven't seen it yet, uh, there's been a big, uh, mathematical, uh, breakthrough recently. Er, the 80-year-old Erdős problem that humans couldn't solve, er, has had a breakthrough, er, thanks to open AI. And not only that, uh, the Internet is now, uh, increasingly being used, using, uh using, uh , AI.
Uh, all content, this is a diagram of all, uh this is a diagram of all, uh , content, is a fraction of all, uh, content that's, uh, created on the Internet, and AI doesn't just answer questions. Obviously, agents, uh, do tasks for you. You, they are planning your next meeting. Uh, they run your programs, and they also, uh, make transactions on your behalf. And in this world, AI agents will need money, according to Mark Anderson.
And in this future, the advantages of blockchain will be much more pronounced than traditional rails, in areas such as authentication, data integrity, and so on. And secondly, Wall and so on. And secondly, Wall Street is constantly engaged in tokenization. We hear about this all the time hear about this all the time . And here's the big number, $300 trillion in assets that will be tokenized and moved on- chain.
You can see real estate on the left, fixed income stocks, and further down the chart, and then on the far right, a then on the far right, a tokenized asset. You can barely see the, um, bar chart bar chart . And as things move on- chain, the capitalization of the underlying token also changes with it. There is debate as to whether this ratio should be one to one in the future. But regardless of whether, ahem, the TVL grows to several hundred trillion dollars, the token's capitalization will not remain at 200 billion.
Um 200 billion. Um , Ethereum as a currency, the system will not use dollars as currency in the future. It will simply be mass and energy, i.e. computer energy.
Uh, and recently Standard Chartered published an interesting report that also describes what happened to Amazon during the bubble burst in 2001, and how that compares to the price of ETH. If you remember, then the price of Amazon shares rose from 113 to 6 dollars. But the underlying business was still improving, and if you were a smart investor and held onto your stocks or invested at that time, you would have gotten a generational return since then , because stocks have, uh, declined more than a thousandfold since then . Er, Ethereum goes beyond fundamental orientation. This is what our executive chairman Tom Lee, uh, presented last week, and Vitalik has said this repeatedly.
EF's role, uh, will change and become more focused and more streamlined, which makes sense because EF's share of ETH, uh, has gone from 17% to now, uh has gone from 17% to now, uh , 0.1%. At a price of $2,000 per ETH, that's, uh, about $200 million. And if you apply a traditional fund model with a 5% return, that's about $10 million you would spend on grants and helping to grow the ecosystem grow the ecosystem , which is not nearly enough. So when Binmine started last year, the EF was 0.
3%. Now it is 0.1%. But over the past year, Ethereum Treasury bonds have really increased their holdings. So these are strategic assets that we do not plan to sell, and in total we hold about 7% we hold about 7% .
At 7%, the return is about $500 million per year. So, here are the summary charts. Until 2024, the fund was quasi-corporate, which I mean means it carried out a lot of activities. He funded public goods, funded a lot of important research. He provided the infrastructure.
He coordinated the growth of ecosystems. I defended neutrality and did a lot of work on proactive implementation and creating network effects. But now, in 2026, the role of the fund has evolved and will continue to evolve, which makes sense. But we will have to continue to drive public goods and long-term research, especially in areas like security and quantum resilience. This will be coordinated with private sector efforts.
This will develop best practices, represent the ecosystem, and strengthen decentralization. So today, the Ethereum network is worth over $200 billion and has an impeccable track record of 11 years of operation without a single day of downtime. It has over 11,000 nodes in 89 countries and over 15,000 developers working on it. It is simply too large to be coordinated by one single organization. But Ethereum, if you look at other sectors and how they've grown over time they've grown over time , you can look at the mobile telecommunications, semi-finished products, and broadcasting industries.
All of these consortia have evolved in their roles over the last few decades, and for example, mobile telecommunications now has thousands of members, and you know they work and develop standards; they conduct certifications, surveys, etc. And the semiconductor industry has also, uh, their role, uh, evolved into, uh evolved into, uh , policy advocacy, uh, and rule-making. And broadcasters are a great example because in the '80s example because in the '80s , in the '20s, they did a lot of work themselves to get it started, but now they have over 18,800 members, and their role is, uh, focused on advocacy, lobbying, education, etc. And Ethereum needs to grow as well, and we already have players like these private companies that are doing a lot of the engagement work for, uh, the industry, and we have, uh, treasury companies that are generating $500 million doing a lot of the work of fostering the ecosystem, which in turn is beneficial and, uh, stimulating for our shareholders. So Ethereum is in a good position.
Uh, EF will become stronger by being more focused, and we will have more players involved in this ecosystem, pushing it forward. So now I'll tell you a little about Binmine. So during this mini-crypto-winter, we've been doing a lot of construction. We initially invested in Ako. We, um, recently increased our investment in Ako, and Ako, um, owns Whirlcoin.
Orone um, owns Whirlcoin. Orone is, um, Sam Allman's "proof of human existence" project, and they've recently, um, attracted a lot of commercial interest, including Reddit, um, which is going to implement ORP technology, and Zoom, and we launched Maven. Maven is the world's largest staking operation, not just Ethereum, but um, for all digital assets, and we're open for business. Um, and we, um, invest about 15, um, 14 billion dollars, and over 2 billion dollars of that is our clients' digital assets, including, um, hype, soul, and others. We also invested in, um, Beast.
Hmm, many of you already know. They recently announced that their revenue for 2025 was almost a billion dollars and grew by, ahem, more than 100% more than 100% compared to the previous year, and they are, ahem, planning for another 60%+ growth. And, of course, Mr. Beast is of course, Mr. Beast is the largest content creator in the world, and they are interested in entering the financial services market for Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
We think they're, uh, well-positioned to become the next-generation Robinet next-generation Robinet . Uh, we listed our shares on the New shares on the New York Stock Exchange. And just recently, uh, Russell Want recently, uh, Russell Want , uh, announced that BitMine is on the preliminary list to be included in their index on June 26th. And this is actually a very important event in the world of investing because about $4 trillion in assets, uh, are being compared to the Russell Russell. Er, that means about 1,600 investment managers will have to make a decision whether to invest in BIM Mine or not.
Uh, it's kind of like being on the main menu of a restaurant, uh, versus being in the pantry in the back kitchen. So, uh, Bitmine is the only way for them to express, uh, influence on Ethereum. Finally, uh, we reached uh, 4 points around 4.6%, uh, we put out a press put out a press release this morning, and uh, we're going to move slower, uh, from here. We'll probably hit 5%, uh, sometime in the second half of this year.
So, the debt outstanding, uh, outperforms, uh, the underlying asset of the cryptocurrency, and last year we outperformed it significantly, and this year also in the Dow market we outperform, uh, the underlying asset. There is a big, uh, correlation with the price of ETH, the underlying price, and if our friends from, uh, Ethereum get it right get it right , and it hits $250,000, then our, uh $250,000, then our, uh , shares have a lot of upside potential. And with that, I want to conclude my remarks and thank you very much.
Automatic transcript — names and jargon may be misspelled.