Why Crypto’s Institutional Bull Market Is Already Here: ARK Invest

There's never been like more interest, honestly, in crypto from institutions. This is really a dichotomy like in the market right now, where people think we're in a bear market. A lot of the pessimism has been priced in already. As I mentioned, I think we have two or three, you know, trends that are going to be multi-year, really, with stablecoin, tokenized assets. These are markets that can grow like at 50% CAGR like on a multi-year basis. And I think they're going to you know, they're going to surprise a lot a lot of of investors out there. I think right now in crypto, you have about 40 billion of tokenized assets. And keep in mind that, you know, US equities alone are 65-70 trillion. The The opportunity here to to take more market share from from trend funds to tokenize these assets is still enormous. >> [music] >> Welcome into another episode of Coin Ninja. I'm your host Zack Guzman, coming to you live from our Brooklyn studios here in New York City, as we are watching Bitcoin continue to swing in that all-important range that could signal a bullish reversal. And a lot going on when it comes to what we heard from Fed chair Kevin Warsh out at the Jackson Hole meetup. I'm excited to have on a very special guest on today's show, as we continue to watch what's happening between crypto and traditional finance. Today on the show, we got Lorenzo Valente. He's Ark Invest's director of research, digital assets. Lorenzo, welcome to Coin Ninja, man. Good to see you. >> Thanks for having me. Happy happy to be here. >> Yes, it's it's an exciting time because I know you have been really deep in the weeds when it comes to delivering Ark's research around crypto. And let's be honest, it's been a bit of a tough bear market for a while here, but now kind of seeing the inklings of some enthusiasm. We're going to play a little bit of what we heard from Kevin Warsh in a second, but just want to get your take of of kind of where you think we're at in this cycle. >> Yeah. Uh I Look, I I agree. I think it's been a very interesting year. Um we've had, you know, in October big deleveraging event on on crypto exchanges. I think that has that marked kind of the the top for crypto. And since then, we've kind of go gone uh uh you know, Bitcoin to uh 55 60k, I think uh touched. So, it's been It's definitely been a bear market uh this year. We've had, you know, the quantum fears, obviously, around around Bitcoin. And if we talk, you know, besides big Bitcoin, the whole like altcoin kind of a complex, it has been even even worse, honestly. And so, I think generally we've seen it's a year of consolidation in in crypto, uh you know, both on chain and off chain, I think. Fewer companies, a lot of protocols and projects are are shutting down, which I think is good. And I think more on the on Bitcoin and the the macro side, like it's uh it's been mainly like macro driven, honestly, right? Um We I think there's a an exhaust exhaustion of uh of sellers just uh in the market, right? Like Bitcoin was around like 60k, and we had uh you know, pretty bad news on Iran and and kind of on the macro side, and and things weren't moving. So, clearly uh it seemed like we were out of sellers, and that's why we've we've bounced like pretty aggressively. But to me, it's still like a market like very much driven by macro, uh you know, uh um as you said, like Jackson Hole, uh Bessent, you know, uh saying that they're going to buy back the long uh the long end of the of the curve. Um the the Iran war, and let's what what's happening with oil prices. And so, um I think to me, like we haven't seen, you know, a lot of catalysts on chain or just purely on the on the crypto side for for Bitcoin at least, Uh it seems like it's much more like macro driven right now. >> Well, that's the interesting thing, too, because I and and this is what we're going to get into is the big discussion around, all right, can you have cuz gold also rallied and we saw Bitcoin's correlation with gold reach a bit of an all-time high in terms of this cycle. So, I should say cycle high. Um but I I want to play a little bit of what we heard from Kevin Warsh because to your point on everything being macro driven, uh we're also going to be entering potentially a paradigm where we see the Fed hike in September. At least the odds are moving in that favor. So, just want to play a little bit of what we heard from Kevin Warsh uh in Jackson Hole that may have been the trigger to shift uh expectations. Here's what he was talking about when it comes to really sticking to the Fed's mandate around reeling in inflation. Here's what he said. >> And it's the Fed's job to make sure that inflation expectations do not get unanchored. Now, there is one signal nobody can miss. Responsibility for 65 months of sustained elevated inflation sits squarely with the central bank. And that's where it belongs. So, here is my standard. We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do. >> So, the Fed still has work to do and Lorenzo, it's very interesting because basically heading into Jackson Hole, we saw like a 66% chance that the Fed would maintain rates going into it. Texas if we're just looking at this chart over here on the call sheet odds. And then we saw after that speech, basically that went from 66 down to 44. So, essentially kind of flipping in terms of expectations. And obviously, when it comes to Bitcoin, you could say it performs more like digital gold or you could say it's more you know, an interest rate sensitive asset. So, what would you say kind of historically about kind of a shift like this? >> Yeah, I think it's interesting. We published about this of Bitcoin being on and off risk asset. And I think what that's what's puzzling a bit, you know, everyone. I think at times like in the market Bitcoin has been highly correlated to just liquidity and and and and risk on mode with with equities and a pretty high degree of correlation with equities. And at times like you know, we've also seen the the off you know, the risk-off asset and more like the digital digital gold thesis as you were saying. We've seen this you know, during the some of the the crisis that we had like last year around around wars or like bankruptcies and like really Bitcoin as as a a digital gold kind of of asset. And so I think it's you know, the the the macro I think the the important thing is really macro is at the the helm here for for crypto and and Bitcoin in general. I think you know, we you know, talking about Polymarket and Kalshi I was looking at this morning at Polymarket and you know, we we could see that the odds for 95k at the end of the year, I think it was about 34-ish percent. Were basically the same as the odds of 60k at the end of the 60k or 65k at the end of the year, which were also around 30% -ish. So, clearly what the market is telling you is right now we're at 78k at 80k, but the market doesn't think that we're going to stay here, right? Like you know, in 2026 people either think it's going to go you know, to 95k or 100k or we're going to go down to to kind of 60k. And I think those that is what exactly what we're seeing, right? Is it going to be risk-on asset or risk-off kind of asset? So, I think that's what every investor is dealing with right now. >> Yeah, I know, for sure. And I mean, obviously, zooming out, I think maybe the conviction, regardless of maybe what happens this year, a lot of people were kind of targeting October as maybe being that that timeline where we may get our answer in terms of which way we break. And a lot of people, and I think I would count, you know, Cathie Wood in a lot of what we've seen publicly from Arc in the idea that, you know, longer term, Bitcoin against the dollar continues to win in that trend. So, what would you say to investors who are kind of trying to figure that out? If you do zoom out and kind of look more at like a longer term four-year cycle, is maybe it doesn't really matter where we end at the end of the year so much as it does kind of zooming out. >> It definitely doesn't matter. I mean, I agree with you. I think, uh, you know, it's an asset that you have to look on a four-year time horizon, at least, right? Uh, um, and so, for investors out there that are obviously looking to to get exposure, um, if you have that time horizon or more, uh, I think, uh, you know, the the the research shows it and, uh, and and, you know, we're we're very positive. I think on the four-year cycle, you know, to add on top of that, so I got the I think in terms of, uh, of uncertainty, uh, you know, whether you believe or not in the four-year cycle, I think it would come to an end like the the end of the bear market, I think in November, October of this year, if I'm not mistaken. And so, you know, whether this is like a self-fulfilling prophecy or actually, you know, something that, uh, um, that is more based on on, you know, the supply and the halving and and and and, you know, dynamics like this. I think there's certainly a lot of people that, uh, you know, that perhaps sold in October last year that were, you know, thinking of the four-year cycle. And now, they're kind of looking at the chart again and saying, "Hey, like I don't really know if it if it is a prophecy or not, but but look like it you know, we're near we're near the bottom basically." And I think a lot of people are are looking at it like like this. >> Now, I would agree and I think also I guess zooming out obviously you guys cover a lot of what's going on with Bitcoin and and kind of where flows are and we have seen through the ETFs flows start to come back on the Bitcoin front, which I think is an important thing to highlight. But looking beyond Bitcoin, it's also interesting because this is maybe one of the first times you guys had in your recent quarterly report a pretty good chart that I want to bring up around how things are flowing from apps now back to kind of blockchains and and that seems to be a theme mostly driven by tokenization because so many different assets are now coming on chain that suddenly revenues on the underlying blockchain are looking more and more impressive relative to apps. And so I guess Lorenzo for your take on on what makes this cycle maybe unique from others is also that point around how much money maybe not be you know, flowing in yet, but kind of the assets are coming on chain. So what do you make of of that piece when you look at relative risk reward here? >> Yeah, I mean I think this is what I was you know, mentioning before. I think for this cycle whether you know, really whether we get clarity you know, or not whether we get the the innovation exemption or or not. It has you know, it has been a consolidation cycle for me and we have like very clear trends where crypto has PMF. And so right now stablecoins are really a vertical that is growing you know, really regardless of what is happening to to the Solana ETH and Bitcoin prices. I think tokenization as you mentioned Zach is is another one that has grown like basically more than 50% year-to-date and we've been in a a bear market. So, more like tokenized funds and tokenized assets coming on chain and I think really that trend is going to continue to grow regardless of of of what happens. And then just trading in general. And so, I think those verticals have great outlooks. You know, obviously, you know, some of the legislation and regulatory kind of environment is going to, you know, it it is going to accelerate that a bit, but I think those trends are you know, those trends are are just very, very strong and I think applications and companies that are able to build on top of that are, you know, are going to grow just a lot. And so, I think the the chart that you just mentioned, you know, it has been a bear market for applications in general, but now we're seeing that they're, you know, they're starting to take a higher share of the of the gross revenue really that is generating by by users. And so, we think that is a really a good sign, right? I think for these underlying blockchains and protocols to have value, you're going to need, you know, a set of applications and just of of of applications that that users are willing to to pay for, right? And so, I think it's it's definitely a a good sign overall. >> Yeah, and I guess I don't know. It's it's interesting cuz I'm I'm reminded of kind of different investing theses around kind of a growing pie in terms of how this may flow to a bunch of different chains. Um you know, whether that's Solana or Ethereum. It seems like we've continued to see a lot of uh uh Ethereum activity stand out at least when it comes to stablecoins. And that's been another interesting piece of the puzzle here. How do you kind of expect? And I know you mentioned clarity and we'll see what happens in September when that vote comes around. >> Yeah. >> But I mean, how big of uh of a, you know, continued boost is that? And can you expect these trends to continue even without it? >> Yeah. I mean, look, if you if you look at those markets, obviously on a relative basis, they've grown a lot, but they're like extremely small to the rest of the of the the off-chain and TradFi market, right? So, [snorts] stablecoins right now are 300 billion. Uh you've seen, you know, projections of, you know, probably like in the in the several trillions of dollars in in the next 5 years. Uh you know, US M2 is 22 trillion. Uh I think global M2 is in the order in the order of 100 trillion. For tokenized assets, you know, we've we mentioned they've grown like 50% year-to-date. I think right now in crypto, you have about 40 billion of tokenized assets. And keep in mind that, you know, US equities alone are 65-70 trillion. So, this is just to give like the some some uh orders, you know, some some magnitude. And so, they've grown a lot, but they're extremely extremely small. And so, I think the the opportunity here to to take more market share from from TradFi to tokenize uh these assets is is still uh is still enormous, uh honestly. And that's really what we're uh we're we're focused on. I think regulations probably going to accelerate that. Uh but uh but yeah, I think keep in mind these markets are very very small right now. >> Yeah, they are. And I guess, you know, obviously kind of uh zooming out, that's that's kind of what makes the Clarity Act interesting relative to what we saw post-genius. Just given the fact that last year, once that happened, we saw a lot of companies we we've been chatting with a few of them. PayPal kind of an early mover in terms of what they've been able to do uh with their own stablecoin, but just recently, it seems like we've seen banks pop up and now be like, "Hey, wait a minute. Maybe we should be doing uh our own here." Uh so, it is very interesting cuz it seems like that's one top hot trend. The other one is like private versus public blockchains in terms of whether or not we do actually expect Ethereum or Solana to win against what banks might be able to do if they want to pursue that as well. Um what's your thoughts there in terms of how that battle will shape up? >> Yeah, so like on the first point, like this is super interesting actually. It's I think the first cycle and we were discussing this internally. The previous cycles were retail driven, right? Like the 2021 and you know, 2017 the ICO, you know, the ICO kind of bubble and then like DeFi summer with the pop of all these tokens and applications. It was 99% like uh driven by retail, right? So you you actually had a pretty good grasp of what was going on, you know, uh talking to your friends and like going on Twitter and crypto Twitter and and and those sort of uh uh of things. But like right now, I think for us the discussions that we've had with financial institutions, with banks, like a lot of portfolio companies that we had, there's never been like more interest honestly in crypto from institutions. This is just These are just conversations that are not, you know, on crypto Twitter and that people, you know, don't really know about. But the amount of interest from banks, you know, brokers, like just financial institutions in general on stable coins, how you integrate them or like on tokenized assets or, you know, any of these themes is at all-time high honestly. And so and this is really a dichotomy like in the market right now where people think we're in a bear market and I think in many ways and in price, you know, in token prices uh and some, you know, more retail driven uh kind of verticals like, you know, gaming, NFTs, like trading obviously. But I think on the new institutional side, like the you know, the conversations that we've that we're having right now, uh you know, we've really never had them and I think the the pipeline uh is is pretty significant in terms of of TradFi firms. I think on the private uh public blockchains, and this is obviously a debate that is kind of ongoing. It seems like institutional flows like Ethereum and Solana right now uh have a very big chunk of the stablecoins and tokenized assets, right? And and we think uh public blockchains are going to continue to to kind of thrive. Uh but we do recognize that, you know, as you as you said, uh some of these private uh blockchains have um you know, a focus on certain aspects like privacy, for example, quantum resistance, or like counterparty risk that uh that, you know, frankly, like some of these institutions care a lot about. And so, um we'll see, you know, to what extent they are pre- Some of these are starting private. They'll, you know, decentralize over time. We've seen that this actually like with layer twos and other blockchains hasn't really uh functioned very well. So, we'll see to what extent they'll be they'll remain private, or they'll decentralize. Uh but but I think uh they're certainly focused on aspects that uh you know, that TradFi institutions like care a lot. And some of them are not really willing to deploy on Ethereum and Solana right now because uh you know, because of these uh uh these these points, you know, like like privacy, for example. And so, uh but, you know, overall, I think uh the pie is going to grow tremendously. And so, I think uh uh you know, ETH and SOL are still like very well positioned uh to me even on the on the institutional flow. And if you see a lot of the announcements, they're continuing to to gain a lot of uh of traction. >> Yeah, I know. It's been interesting to kind of see I mean, obviously, so much of this cycle's uh excitement has been tied to maybe what Hyperliquid's been building in terms of being uh the leading perpetual futures uh platform. And then also seeing President Trump and basically removed We just had uh David Shemesh from Hyperliquid Strategies on, one of the leading Daps talking about Hyperliquid. Kind of removed one of the biggest overhangs, which is the regulatory overhang when you have the president saying Hyperliquid at a press conference, and we saw the price action reflect that. Um but I I I will just kind of bring up the chart, too, cuz to your point, it is it is interesting to see kind of some of that uh as you mentioned like activity that almost seems like the safest kind of activity to have when it comes to stable coins uh in those two ecosystems you mentioned around Solana and Ethereum. But moving beyond that, I I do think it has been interesting to see so much enthusiasm spill over into Hyperliquid and others. And I want your take is when it comes to how that's gone because it almost seems like there's a bit of a lot of catch-up happening, whether you look at Lyra in the Ethereum ecosystem what they're trying to build kind of there. How do you see that battle shaping up, and how important is it? >> Yeah, it's it's a good question. Look, like uh Hyperliquid has really taken like all the the oxygen out of the room, right? Like it's it's definitely uh the the fastest kind of growing application like in the in the last year. Like you see pretty much any metric. You know, I think they're doing like a billion dollars of run rate uh revenue more or less. So it it is it is amazing uh honestly. Uh we know that perps are um you know, very profitable. We know they have, you know, extreme kind of PMF in crypto like product market fit. They're they're used like it's really a primitive that that people love to trade. Um and so it hasn't been a a surprise. Obviously, Hyperliquid has taken like most of the of the market share, right? I do think uh Zach like this is it's going to become increasingly competitive, right? We have seen, you know, um some of these applications uh uh some of these centralized exchange uh compete compete now. We know that perps uh are now available for crypto assets in the US uh uh you know, like the the native uh perpetual futures. And so, I think it's going to get uh increasingly difficult. I think for hyperliquid, um they've really mastered the offshore uh you know, kind of pro trader use case uh for for hyperliquid, and they've they've basically won that market. I think right now is how are they going to enter the more regulated market, right? And some of these regulated markets are extremely big, like the US or Europe, for example, right? And so, there I expect more competition. As you said, you know, the President Trump mentioned hyperliquid. I I don't know how they're going to enter the US if they're going to do it. I I don't think they're going to allow like you know, KYC-less type of front-end activity into hyperliquid. Uh so, it's really the you know, still a question mark. Um but um but look, it's it's been amazing what they what they they've built. And as you mentioned, Lighter, uh you know, their uh all you know, their protocols are on the on chain and also centralized exchanges off chain, that obviously want to take a share of that pie, and I think the competition is going to has just started and is going to be very fierce. You're seeing that, you know, we even have like some venues that are specializing, right? Like on perps on commodities or perps are for example, on stocks or perps on indices. And so, I think you're going to see more of that, and people started you know, to take some market share in these in these verticals, but they're the competition I think has just started, honestly. >> Yeah, it does seem interesting. And I I mean, this is another thing that I watch as well, as kind of the spread between hyperliquid and Lighter's token, LIT, just because it's it's very interesting to kind of think about I mean, every cycle has this where it's like leader catch-up trade, and you know, whether it was Ethereum and Solana last cycle, whether it's hyper liquid and lighter this time around and what they're trying to build. But also to your point on like it all being retail driven versus institutions, it's been very interesting to kind of see some of those players in this space look at if you are like a Tom Lee invested in Ethereum and leading one of the leading daps and you see something like lighter that could bring that activity to Ethereum. That's an investment. That's a piece of support that you might want to to participate in. And so it's been very interesting watching this all play out. But to your point, I mean you have another tweet because I I would I would maybe like to dig into the idea of whether or not this is retail versus institution driven this time around because we did also see Robinhood make a big move this cycle in terms of launching Robinhood chain. And you flagged some of the the activity in Uniswap in terms of the numbers that you've been seeing there recently. Just want to bring up one of your tweets kind of looking at that and and bring up the chart. This is from a couple days ago. So obviously, you know, there's there's a little bit more here to maybe potentially weigh. Although it's only 3 days to include in then. But I mean a lot of this seems driven by what's been happening in the trenches in Robinhood's chain. We've seen a lot of activity there with meme coins and ponds, the launchpad. What do you make of that and how much maybe it it could maybe signal that you don't only need to go the private blockchain experience cuz Robinhood seems to be cooking here. >> Look, I think you've seen you know, layer twos and just some of these big centralized exchanges, brokers and and you know, trade fake companies be very amenable in and using layer twos to to deploy their their blockchain. Like it's really been I think one of the very positive points I think on on Ethereum land, right? Like if you see Ethereum mainnet it seems like there's not a lot of people and projects like you know, launching on mainnet. You know, it's still quite costly. And so if you see layer twos as a a scaling kind of solution, I think a lot of a lot of uh companies have have embraced that, right? And some of these companies, as you mentioned, have just tremendous distribution, right? They have tens of millions of of active users, which, you know, it dwarfs basically, you know, some of the active addresses or active users that we have in crypto in general. And so, obviously, you know, they they skew this this activity like very significantly. As you mentioned some of these players. And so, if you're an application like like Uniswap, you mentioned Lyra, I think a lot of the the tailwinds that they had is is integrating with the with these these layer twos, right? And so, you where you have you meet just like applications that are starting to become extremely efficient and extremely useful with, you know, distributions. So, for some of these centralized entities in the tens of millions of um of monthly active users, well, I think you just have, you know, a perfect match there. And I think that's that's what we're we're seeing. And so, I think a lot of these primitive integrations on on layer twos are are just are just ripping, right? And Uniswap was doing extremely well even before that integration, but this is just like a huge huge catalyst. And same same for for Lyra. And so, you know, I think the the projects, honestly, that will win So, the applications that will win, you know, activity on those layer twos that are extremely extremely you know, active and have a lot of users. And you know, on Ethereum, basically, you can get count that like, you know, with the on your hand. Like it's probably like four to five layer twos. They're not more than that. >> Yeah. >> I think are going to are going to are going to do extremely well. >> Yeah, I mean, guess just for you personally, too, and and maybe again zooming out and thinking about risk rewards, it's it's been interesting. It kind of a decoupling. We just had Caitlin Long on the show, and one of the points that she was making was was mostly around like, you know, this is what Bitcoin does. Bitcoin moves up and down, but for the purists, so long as you can swap it, you don't really care about price over a longer term horizon. Uh and it's been very interesting kind of think about what that means as well to your point as more assets come on chain, as more money flows into uh trading on chain versus off chain, what that means in terms of just this point in the cycle. And I think you you know, you personally, I mean, what is it kind of like for you as someone who's been in the space for a while to kind of maybe see something similar where price hasn't really reflected all of the activity that those of us in the bear are watching, but knowing what it could look like if those animal spirits return. >> I mean, it's kind of the story of crypto, right? Like it's been obviously catching like some of those uh big trends before uh institutions or other players uh you know, kind of uh uh priced um you know, I'll say this. I think a lot of the pessimism has been priced in already, and a lot of equities and tokens, as you can see out there, you know, you look at the charts. As I mentioned, I think we have two or three, you know, trends that are going to be multi-year really with stable coin, tokenized assets. Uh you know, we haven't talked about kind of agentic workflows and finance on on these blockchains. And so, um you know, as risk appetite, you know, come comes back and and you know, people are kind of started to think about these these trends, um again, I think going back to how, you know, how's how small these markets are, if you get like good regulation, if you get a bit of animal spirits back and you know some of of these big integrations, um these are markets that can grow like at 50% CAGR like on a multi-year basis. And I think they're going to you know, they're going to surprise a lot a lot of of investors out there. >> Yeah, I mean I would agree and to your point on kind of pessimism being priced in, this is something that we've also heard on Coinage quite a bit from our guests. Just mostly if you look at the chart right now for expectations around the clarity passing. I think today we may have hit a new low around 13%. So almost nobody really expects anything to come uh in September. And again, even then we've already heard from the SEC and CFTC push back on that idea that it only has to come from Congress. And so we also had President Trump's executive director of uh digital asset policy on Coinage and he made the same point is that look, there are plenty of other levers to pull here beyond just the Clarity Act. So it'll be interesting to see how that all shakes out. Uh before we go let me go Lorenzo, one last thing maybe to to make a note of because I know that this was also in your Bitcoin thesis uh update or big ideas 2026 and then the quarterly update was around uh strategy. We did get the update there uh recently that they're back to buying Bitcoin for the first time since June. So maybe a bit of an overhang starting to ease and certainly what they've been doing looking a little bit stronger, less of a worry now. Um I haven't kept tabs admittedly on Arc's Bitcoin price targets that that we've heard from Cathie Wood uh recently. I don't know where those land now. Uh but how does how does the Bitcoin thesis maybe uh reflect a little bit differently than there were those worries earlier this summer? >> I mean it definitely didn't change. Like I can tell you that like what happened with the with MicroStrategy. You know, we the the models that we do and the projections are five-year projections, right? So if you look at our uh price targets, uh I think what we published what we update in big ideas 2026 is the price target for 2020 for 2031, right? So, it's a 5-year a price target. Uh so, what happened with MicroStrategy absolutely doesn't change our view on the asset long-term. Does it change how we see the market, you know, on the short to medium term? Absolutely, right? Like these are metrics and things that we look at. Obviously, there were a lot of concerns about uh you know, um the dividend payments from uh you know, uh from strategy, were they going to be you know, are they able to to pay that with with Bitcoin like going down? Uh you know, with the stretch product that, you know, basically kind of de-pegged. I don't know, you you shouldn't say de-pegged cuz it's not quite that, but like went all down to like 79 79 cents. And so, you know, I think uh uh those were definitely uh concerns from the market and how, you know, they were going to basically manage MSTR shareholders, stretch shareholders, and basically, you know, uh uh debt uh holders. And so, they have, you know, strategy kind of have these this love triangle that they need to you know, that they need to manage. >> Yeah. >> And so, I think it didn't really change our our outlook, but you know, they've resumed now a a you know, buying Bitcoin. And so, it seems like they've they've been able to accumulate like a you know, a good amount of of cash and reserves to pay the dividends, I think, for the next kind of 12 to 18 months. So, I think the market is kind of reassured right now. Uh this is obviously because Bitcoin has popped like to to 80K. I think if we go back to 60 or 60 65K, we'll see the same concerns uh to to be honest. But long-term, this is not something really that that um that changes our our thesis for Bitcoin. >> Yeah, I guess that's that's the that's the element that continues to impress me. I mean, I think uh we got the filing this morning. It was 600 million or so that they brought in through uh new issuances of MSTR. And then again, the big Bitcoin update adding Well, there it is, 369 million in terms of aggregate purchase. Aggregate purchase, but but also boosted their Bitcoin holdings for the first time since June. And your point on the on the on the buffer here, you know, still up there in terms of larger and larger cash reserves around stretch. And we've seen that move in the right direction. So, a lot of that trending in the right direction. But I guess just to wrap up as we kind of let you go and and give you the last word here. I mean, everyone seems to be looking at the range. You called it out. 80K now is kind of where we're trading around, potential move lower, potential move higher. Is there any trigger that might make you a little bit more confident here that we're finally past everything? Is is there something you're watching in the short term that might give that indication beyond just price? >> Uh it's it's a good question. Look, I think uh I think macro is still, you know, the the at the helm of of this. I think it's uh it's hard to say. I think Bitcoin like in the short-to-medium term, I think is going to be trading more as the debasement and and store of value asset, right? The the digital gold. And so really there like you have to look at, you know, rates, macro, you know, I think Iran. Those are kind of the the biggest topics to me it seems. And so Look, again, I think uh long term, this doesn't really matter. I think this is more a question of of 2026 like in the in the short term. But you know, whether we go back to 60K or we go up to 95 or 100K, I think for us like the the long-term outlook doesn't doesn't really change. >> Well, it's it's reassuring in terms of I think particularly what we've heard from a few people who have been around Bitcoin for a while is that, you know, we may not be necessarily out of the woods yet because some triggers still haven't flashed in terms of a full reversal. Um but I think having the confidence to know that if there is a leg lower, there's a difference between wanting to sell versus wanting to buy the dip. Uh and it's interesting to see kind of those paradigms continue to change. But this is the first time we had you on the show. Can't thank you enough for joining cuz I think, you know, again, shout-out to the research that you guys publish over at Arc cuz it's it's very helpful stuff. So I'd encourage our viewers to check that out as well. >> This was super fun. Like uh happy to do it whenever whenever you guys want and and yeah, thanks for having me. >> Right on. There you go. We'll wrap there. Lorenzo Valente, Arc Invest Digital uh sorry, director of research digital assets. Uh our thanks to Lorenzo for hopping on the stream. As always, you can head to coindesk.com to check out the biggest interviews around the world of crypto and tradfi. We've got a lot more coming as we are watching the continued reaction from Jackson Hole, of course. Don't want to say we front ran them, but we were there at the at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium from SALT a week prior and more interviews to come from that as well. For Lorenzo, for myself, for everybody here at CoinDesk, we appreciate you tuning in. Hope to see you again soon. If you haven't subscribed yet, head over to the YouTube channel. Subscribe there and retweet this if you enjoyed it. We'll see you again soon.