Welcome back to Chester's opening bell.
We have a look here right now at the
team and Grayscale investments ringing the opening bell,
that here at the new york stock exchange that happened at 9 30 this morning?
Last month the grayscale launched its Future of finance E T. F.
The fund allows investors to benefit from innovative business is critical
to evolving the financial system to build the digital economy.
Joining me now to discuss is Michael, Sonnenschein Ceo of Grayscale investments,
glad to have you on this morning, Michael,
just tell us a little bit more about the objectives
of the future of Finance CTF and how grayscale is looking
at the overall digital economy.
Well,
it's great to be here and thank you so much for having me when I think the grayscale
team zooms out and looks at the product family
that we've provided over the last eight years.
It's largely been driven by providing investors
with access to digital assets directly.
And when we think about how investors should be building out their portfolios,
we felt that there was a really important opportunity to also
provide investors with access to the broadly defined digital economy really,
that confluence between technology and finance and so G Fox ticker G.
F. O. F.
The Grayscale future of Finance CTF really is
intended to complement that exposure and give investors
to a lot of the infrastructure around the changing financial services landscape,
Maybe looking out at least the next 10 years or so
when you look at the current environment they were in,
what sectors do you see performing and then I would imagine, you know, how is the E.
T. F. Kind of position to benefit?
Well, the future of finance CTF has really broken down into three pillars.
So it's financial foundations, technology solutions and digital assets.
A lot of investors are believing in the growth of
the digital economy and really rooting it in the fact
that it's super early days for its growth and liken
it actually to the early days of the internet.
So where this goes over the coming years is too early to say.
But there's a lot of excitement about adding
this new theme of investing to one's portfolio.
You know, inflation obviously is the big story for the last, you know, year or so,
with it being so top of mind, not only for consumers, but for many investors,
is there any concern that the changing kind of consumer behavior
that impacts the performance of the payment industry,
especially in the longer term?
Well,
I think there's no question that investors need to be
comfortable stomaching some volatility and generally having a longer term
time horizon for these types of investments.
So it's not necessarily something you're gonna see every type of investor action.
But certainly investors are talking about rising
inflation and wanting to position their portfolios as
diversified as possible to whether any of
those changes that their portfolios may experience,
we know digital, the digital economy is certainly here to stay and and it's growing,
but I wonder what do you see as some kind
of challenges to the advancing of the digital economy.
We see it actually more as opportunities than challenges.
There's a large opportunity from a regulatory standpoint
to see regulators engaged on assets like digital currencies
and others as these technologies become more commonplace,
there's also an opportunity for investors to really reshape and reframe
the ways that they think about not only their investments,
but what constitutes value?
How value has moved around the world seamlessly and for
free with the emergence of these types of technologies.
So again, early days and opportunities abound.
We had just a moment ago,
a graphic on our screen that showed kind of the top holdings of the E T F.
Let's see if we can get that graphic up again, because on their, you know,
one of the names that I saw was coined based
and we know the Grayscale is kind of crypto heavyweight,
especially behind the Bitcoin Trust E T F.
How does gray scale plan on capturing areas of the modern financial systems, um,
that are unregulated.
You know, things obviously like crypto in the spotty TF?
Well, certainly our efforts around the spot Bitcoin E T F. R really, really robust.
This is the number one priority for the Grayscale team.
We've been working proactively with regulators dating all the way back
to 2000 and 16 and are still actively engaged with them
in the approval of this kind of a product.
We've always positioned ourselves as an organization
that wants to work proactively with regulators
and wants to bring investors really the types of solutions that give
them comfort when accessing a new part of the investment universe.
So we remain committed to the spotty TF and it's really a matter of when,
not a matter of if that's able to be brought into the market.
Speaking of when, when do you see the most likely timeline of that?
Well,
the Grayscale team is right now in the middle of that statutory 240 day
review process that the sec goes through when evaluating any new rule change.
And so the conversion of ticker G B T C,
the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust that actually expires in early july and so today,
what we're seeing is an outpouring of support from the investment community,
having letters written into the sec opining on why in fact, investors deserve
and have been patient waiting for an e T F.
And so many investors are doing this every single day.
And if you're a g B T C holder or want to spotty TF,
we invite you to visit grayscale dot com slash comment.
We've tried to make it as easy as possible for
investors to advocate for this new and innovative product,
Michael before I have to let you go here, just want to know, you know,
where does Grayscale see
the digital economy? And let's say the next two years.
Well,
what you're going to see from our viewpoint is a
lot of new companies coming into the public market,
and GFF is really intended to be the net that captures them
as the digital economy takes off.
And as we begin to see transformation along the financial services sector.
So we're really excited to see the emergence of
some of these companies and the products and services
they're offering. But again, it's still early days for it.
So you'll have to have me back on to talk some more about it over the next year or so.
We definitely will just let us know when that's happening and we'll bring you back.
Michael, really appreciate your time.
Michael, Sonnenschein Ceo of Grayscale investment.